Bollywood Popcorn

Last year, we spent a couple of days in Morro Bay on California's Central Coast. On the way back home, we stopped at Paso Robles. The plan was to go wine tasting in the local wineries, but the day turned out to bee scorching hot and walking around a winery with two reluctant kids tagging along did not seem like a good idea. Instead, we explored downtown Paso Robles, hugging the shade of the buildings, pausing once in a while to look at the antique store windows. We were drawn to the WeOlive storefront because of its unique Colonial facade and the dogs thirstily lapping up water from the bowl left outside by the shop owners. While my kids stopped to pet the dogs, I decided to take a look inside.

The store had a vast array of olive oils available for tasting along with  pestos, tapenades, vinegars, jams, and other condiments. The people at the shop were super friendly, encouraging customers to sample everything, explaining the difference between the products. For sampling, they had the usual bits of bread that all olive oil places provide for dipping, but they also had little cups of freshly popped corn tossed in the flavor-infused olive oils they had in the store. We were blown away by the popcorn flavored with jalapeño olive oil. I typically find flavored popcorn either cloyingly sweet or over-the-top cheesy. In this case, the jalapeño oil added just a hint of heat to the popcorn and was surprisingly light. We walked away with several purchases from WeOlive -- including the jalapeño olive oil.

The idea for this Bollywood Popcorn evolved from the jalapeño oil infused popcorn. "If popcorn tastes so good with spicy jalapeño oil, imagine how great it would taste with aachar-oil (pickle oil)?" mused the older one as we sat munching a fresh batch of jalapeño popcorn one afternoon. Indian pickles are made by mixing fresh fruits or vegetables in heavily spice-laden oils and leaving the concoction to marinate in the sun for several days. After the marination period is over, the fruits and vegetables absorb the oil and spices. The pickling oil on the other hand is imbued with the flavors of the fruits and vegetables. A few drops of residual oil from a jar of any Indian pickle can pack a burst of flavors into neutral foods. We often add pickling oil to our puffed rice to make jhaal muri and to our mashed potatoes to make alu sheddho. I was impressed to see the older one proposing the idea of adding pickle oil to popcorn -- I thought that was pretty innovative of her. So, we decided to give it a try.

The only way I can describe this pickle oil infused popcorn is that it is a Bollywood Masala movie in your mouth -- it is salty, spicy, tangy, and just a little sweet. If your oil comes from a very spicy pickle, it may even leave you teary-eyed (like me in any Bollywood movie where Shah Rukh Khan's character dies ;-)! You will find yourself wolfing down bowls of these as you watch your next Bollywood flick.

What You Need (For approximately 4 quarts popped corn):
1/2 cup corn kernels
11/2 tbsp neutral oil
2 tbsp aachar oil (residual oil from any jarred Indian pickle. I used the oil from a Hot Punjabi Mango Pickle for this batch, but you can use any pickle you have at home.)

Directions:
Scoop out two tablespoons of aachar oil from the pickle jar. You are after just the oil and the pickling spices, not the actual vegetables and fruits in the pickle. If you do not have 2 tbsp oil in the pickle jar, scoop out some of the spice mix and then thin it out with some vegetable oil or other neutral oil.

Heat oil in a big heavy-bottomed pan. Add corn kernels and stir for a few seconds.

Place lid on the pot, leaving it slightly ajar so that moisture does not collect inside the lid. Once the corn starts popping, shake the pan a few times to redistribute the corn kernels.

Remove from heat when the popping slows to several seconds between pops and empty the popped corn into a wide-mouthed bowl.

Toss the corn with the pickle oil.