Poll of the Day > I made stovetop popcorn with fresh kernels

(+) Yeah! (+)

I didnt jazz it up too much with a ton of butter and whatever else, so it did taste a bit bland, but even so, leagues better than microwaved bags. That funky taste bags always have(pop secret, etc) was not present.

Plus you get SO MUCH popcorn from those seeds, and it tastes way better than bags, so its actually a hell of a deal.

It's the best way to popcorn.

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America's Test Kitchen says that bagged and popped popcorn can beat out homemade if you get a decent brand cause they have more consistent kernels.
Personally, I pop it myself and like to switch up between yellow and white popcorn. I love drowning it in butter and grease, plus controlling exactly how much I make.

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What would happen if you rendered the fat out of a bunch of bacon then made popcorn using the bacon fat...

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captpackrat posted...

What would happen if you rendered the fat out of a bunch of bacon then made popcorn using the bacon fat...

Deliciousness. I keep rendered bacon fat in my fridge.

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Put some Tony Chachere's on it. Good stuff.

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SunWuKung420 posted...

Deliciousness. I keep rendered bacon fat in my fridge.

My mom used to do that when I was a kid.

She had this metal container with a removable strainer at the top, to strain out all the bits I guess so they wouldn't burn when you used the grease next time.

Why'd people stop collecting grease? When did this happen?
The looks I get when I mention keeping bacon grease. Forget the money you save, the taste alone is incredible. I don't even filter mine and have never ran into smells or issues like that. A couple pounds of bacon makes a ton of grease, probably close to a few sticks worth of butter.

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pedro45 posted...

Why'd people stop collecting grease? When did this happen?
The looks I get when I mention keeping bacon grease.

There's a lot of people that rarely cook. Plus there's the whole "fat is bad for you" group.

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It just seems to be transition way fast to people not knowing how to cook.
I serve food for a living and you're right. It's real depressing how many people can't cook for themselves, and on top of that, don't know what they consume. They'll even argue what's in something or not in something, out of complete ignorance.
That'd kinda scare me to be that out of touch. Heck, even thinking about farming and everything that goes on in the background for our food, is a scary thought to have to do alone if the world came to it.

Thank you guys for being willing to do stuff, expand your mind and more. It's reassuring not everyone is lazy or uses their time in reliance of others. We can't all be good at everything, but it's always good to try.

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pedro45 posted...

Why'd people stop collecting grease? When did this happen?
The looks I get when I mention keeping bacon grease.

I cook all the time, but I cook bacon maybe twice a year. One of which is usually while camping.

So I don't have any bacon grease to keep.

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Any other forms of grease?

I applaud your cooking and was more directing it at people who look down at it and don't get it at all.

I cook a lot of bacon, it used to be like once a week, now maybe once a month.
When it comes to other meats, I usually keep the pan around for their grease. My girlfriend uses it a lot to fry up sandwiches and stuff.
So there's that alternative to get a little extra use out of drippings :)

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I...don't think I actually cook a lot of things that have any useable leftover grease or anything like that.

Most of the time when I make pretty much any kind of meat, I use all the drippings to make gravy. The rest of the time I'm barbecuing, which doesn't really allow for grease capture.

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Well now I feel a fool for putting down someone who cooks accidentally.

Sounds like you cook like a champ always and utilize everything.

This is off topic, but how are your grill marks? I'm terrible on a barbeque, so I just aim for grill marks to make up for it.

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pedro45 posted...

This is off topic, but how are your grill marks? I'm terrible on a barbeque, so I just aim for grill marks to make up for it.

Hahahaha. If I care enough, I can make it look good. Set the temp to high, give it a minute or two on each side to sear it, and then lower the temp to finish cooking it.

pedro45 posted...

Well now I feel a fool for putting down someone who cooks accidentally.

I don't think that was your intention. Cooking is a bit of a lost art these days, and I feel like it's very reasonable to assume that the average person today is worse at cooking compared to people 50 years ago.

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How fresh can a kernel of popcorn possibly be? After all they have to be dried correctly before they can be popped.

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