Chuckwagon Popcorn

One of the best party tricks ever – and a real crowd-pleaser. This is something that your friends are going to talk about, and your family is going to pester you to make, over and over again.

It’s REALLY easy, and believe us when we tell you that it truly is the best popcorn you will ever eat.

Ingredients

Approximately ¾ cup popcorn

Approximately 1/3 cup vegetable oil. Enough so that the kernels are surrounded by, but not submerged in oil.

Salt to taste

That’s’ it!

Method

You need heat for popcorn. If you already have a solid bed of coals, you can drop your Chuckwagon pot directly onto them. If you don’t, get a biggish fire going and hang your pot by one of our S-Hooks in the hottest part of the flame. 

TIP #1 – put the popcorn and oil into the pot BEFORE it goes on the fire.

Now the tough part: Wait.

Seriously. Your Chuckwagon pot is exactly the right amount of metal to properly cook food, but it takes a while to absorb heat - Let it do so.

Soon enough (maybe 3-4 full minutes) you will hear the magical sounds of popping corn hitting the pot lid. It sounds like a bell, and you may well develop a Pavlovian response to it!

The first couple of few times you make this, pull the lid off the pot once the kernels are really popping. If they jump out, (duh…) put it back on. Once you have enough popcorn that the popped stuff is holding the new poppers down, watch closely.

TIP #2 - Have your bowl and gloves ready to go BEFORE the popcorn is done. And use serious gloves and/or a big rag when you dump the corn, as the legs of the pot are going to be HOT. 

As soon as the popping activity slows appreciably, pull the pot and dump it into a big bowl. You’d rather have a few un-popped “grannies” than burned treats. 

By the third time you make this, you will be able to do the whole operation by sound, and you won’t have to pull the lid off. It can literally be done in the dark.