Thursday, January 10, 2013

Duck-Fat Powder for Popcorn

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THE perfect popcorn seasoning? At least it’s the best I’ve ever tasted.

It was finally cold enough to light a fire last weekend, and I love popcorn and hot chocolate by the fire. I had a quarter tub of rendered duck fat from D’Artagnan in the fridge and some tapioca maltodextrin in my pantry and thought, “Eureka! I can make duck-fat powder for my popcorn.” I decided to search online for some relevant recipes to get an idea of the ratio (since I was sitting in my office and didn’t feel like going to my cookbook shelf to check MC). Much to my chagrin, I found that Scott Heimendinger of Seattle Food Geek and MC's Director of Applied Research had posted a recipe for just that. I’m sure I must have seen his post in the past; and here I thought I had had a genius idea…

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It’s a very quick and easy modernist cuisine technique with the addition of a tiny bit of cornstarch to prevent clumping and some popcorn salt. I popped 1/3 cup of popcorn in about 3 tablespoons of duck fat, then tossed it with the duck-fat powder. Oh my! It was so good, I may serve it at my next party. My husband skeptically deigned to try some; he went through the rest of the bowl like a wood-chipper. In fact, it was so wonderful, and since it used half of my small bag of tapioca maltodextrin, I immediately ordered a one pound tub of it to keep on hand.