Last night I went out to my two dear friends', Shira and Liat, joint birthday party. The Jewish holiday of Purim is coming up on Sunday and most Israelis are preempting and prolonging the festivities. Purim celebrates yet another occasion when the Jews were nearly killed, and then weren't due to our own cunning in manipulating the events. The tradition is to dress up on Purim, eat Haman Taschen (Oznei Haman, or triangular cookies filled with apricot, poppy seed, carob, raspberry, or sometimes chocolate), and most people in secular Tel Aviv forgo the compulsory fast also associated with this holiday. So for most here, Purim is simply the Israeli Halloween, and there were some great costumes last night, though most were pretty makeshift.
As a result of this partying for Purim, I didn't make dinner last night, but I did come home from the pool hall where the party was being held without having eaten or drunk anything, and I was hungry! So rather than just make some popcorn, I decided to make some fancy popcorn so I could take pictures and put it on the blog. It was also generally more delicious. You could make this herb butter in larger quantities and store in in the fridge, covered, for up to a month. The sriracha came out of a store-bought squeeze bottle...
Enjoy!
Ingredients:
50 grams of unsalted butter
2 small or one large clove of garlic
1/4" of peeled ginger
2 tbls of cilantro, pressed down into the spoon when measuring
2 tsp of key lime juice (regular lime juice will do fine)
2 tsp of salt
pepper to taste
2.5 tbls of veg oil
1/2 cup of popcorn
Directions:
Cut the butter when cold into the little cubes, about 1/4" on all sides
In a mortar, pound then grind the garlic into a paste. Add the cilantro and do the same until all is consistent. Add the ginger and repeat. Then add one cube up butter at a time, first smashing it, then working it into the other contents of the mortar with a circular motion of the pestle. Once half the butter has been incorporated, add the lime juice and the salt, work it into the butter, then incorporate the rest of the butter and pepper if you like.
In a medium dutch oven (about 12" in diameter), heat the veg oil over medium heat. Add three kernels of popcorn. When one pops, add the rest of the popcorn and put the lid on the dutch oven. Pop until you hear fewer than 1 pop per second, shaking occasionally. Transfer the popcorn to a bowl in batches, with each layer adding a bit of butter. Then once all has been put in the bowl, throw on some Sriracha. This is HOT! Have some diet coke or other next to you to complete the experience...
B'Teavon!
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