Popcorn that Tastes Like Chicken

snacking > pecking

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Somehow I got it in my head to make popcorn that tastes like Buffalo chicken.

“Somehow” doesn’t give the whole context. I am working with a European-style butter brand called Danish Creamery, and as part of that pitch process, I sent over a bunch of recipe concepts for them to choose from. It was not hard to come up with ideas—I use butter all the time in my cooking, and 10 years in magazines has hardwired some pathway in my brain that makes the pitch process feel second nature. I like to use butter lots of ways! That’s that’s the best situation to be in when you’re doing branded content. “Alignment,” they say.

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But this is not the first time I dug a hole for myself by naming a recipe and trusting myself to figure it out later. Did the exact same thing to myself with chicken with shrimp butter. Trust the process, they say! You’ll figure it out, they say! It seemed so straightforward in my mind: the foundation of Buffalo sauce is butter and hot sauce. Mimicking those flavors would just be about the butter (again, easy), some spices in the hot sauce world, plus something tangy. Right?

What I had not considered was the way the chicken factors into things. The butter and hot sauce mixture goes onto fried chicken, hello. In addition to the chicken (wing, tender, whatever), there’s the crisp coating that has gone through some sort of maillard reaction in the fry oil. Even with the addition of Better Than Bouillon, my preferred brand, my first batch was just “good.” My decision to brown the butter was validated—it was nutty and toasty and got me closer to that crisp coating flavor. What I made did not taste like Buffalo chicken, though.

Soon, though, I was in the throes of an existential crisis. The famous stage three of the recipe developer’s quest: despair, anger, me walking around my house muttering “what is chicken?” I couldn’t get over the irony of everyone who has ever said “it tastes like chicken” about alligator, rabbit, frog legs. So then what does chicken taste like??? How do you add chicken-y flavor to something that does not have chicken?

I stood motionless in spice aisles all over Brooklyn searching for the answer. I read the labels of all the chicken-flavored everythings: ramen, Cup O’ Noodles, soup mixes, Rice-a-Roni, seasoning blends. The information I found there was always the same, and never that helpful: natural flavors, artificial flavors, and MSG. I considered telling you all to buy an instant ramen package just to get the little pillow of spices inside and put that right on the popcorn. I watched this video that several people familiar with my struggle sent me and can tell you with 100% certainty that eating that amount of bouillon straight up would be the most unbelievably salty thing you’ve ever put in your mouth.

Stage Four, breakthrough and triumph, started as another miss. In a stroke of (what I believed to be) genius, I added some celery seeds to the popcorn spices, to mimic the celery sticks that go with Buffalo popcorn, of course. It didn’t work, they get unpleasantly bitter and stick in your teeth. My brain, though, had moved to “associated flavors” as a way to trick the palate into thinking it was eating chicken. Chicken adjacent popcorn! I pivoted to schmaltz for popping the kernels, which helped, but wasn’t a home run.

In one of those spice aisles where I stood entranced, I spied a box of Bell’s Seasoning, an OG product that is used on roast chickens and also for making stuffing. The resulting batch of Bell’s popcorn had a je ne sais quoi poultry energy, but somehow it was less like Buffalo chicken than ever. It was tangy, buttery, a little spicy, crunchy, and very chickeny. The road to Buffalo chicken took me to vinegar chicken, and that worked for me.

The crazy thing about all of this is that Buffalo chicken popcorn does not exist out in the world; if the big snack brands can’t figure it out, maybe it wasn’t just me. Vinegar chicken popcorn exists only here, and while it is delicious to eat, it is also fun to force people to eat it in front of you while you go “what does it taste like what does it taste like???!!!” and when they can’t figure it out, you can shout VINEGAR CHICKEN and watch how they clap for you.

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This week’s written recipe is posted below as a PDF and in plain text for everyone—paid and free subscribers alike. Thank you for showing up! Do me a solid and follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel. These seem like little things, but it helps me a lot. And of course: make the popcorn and tag me so I can reshare! xo

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Vinegar Chicken Popcorn

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New! Recipe June 4, 2024 

Vinegar Chicken Popcorn

For this recipe, I had the opportunity to pitch a fun popcorn flavor to a European-style butter brand called Danish Creamery. Since my only other published popcorn recipe famously does not contain butter, I figured I’d take this decadent starting point and run with it—straight to Buffalo Chicken! High-low, you know? Through multiple drafts, I tried to recreate the spicy-tangy-buttery flavor of Buffalo chicken, and failed. Instead, I made a giant batch of popcorn that started to taste more and more like vinegar chicken. It’s art—I am but a vessel!  If you take popcorn as seriously as I do, you will need to add this to your snacking repertoire STAT. 

Ingredients

2 teaspoons chicken bouillon, such as Better than Bouillon

4 ounces (½ cup) salted butter

2 Chiles d’Árbol

2 tablespoons powdered white distilled vinegar

Ingredients, cont.

1 tablespoon milk powder

1 teaspoon chicken seasoning, such as Bell’s

¾ teaspoon granulated sugar

½ teaspoon cayenne

½ teaspoon chipotle powder

¼ cup chicken fat (schmaltz)

¾ cup popcorn kernels

Kosher salt; freshly ground pepper

Bring ½ cup water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add the bouillon and stir to dissolve, then simmer over medium heat until the liquid is reduced by half, 5 to 6 minutes. If you are using a powdered or cube-style bouillon, dissolve in water before reducing.

Add the butter and the chiles and swirl pan to melt the butter. Cook, stirring and swirling pan, until the bubbling subsides, the milk solids start to brown and the bouillon separates from the butterfat and starts to turn golden, 8 to 10 minutes. This will look different than your ordinary browned butter because of the additional ingredients; the bubbles may appear thicker and more opaque. All normal! Turn off heat and let bouillon-butter mixture cool. Skim off foam with a shallow spoon.

While the butter cooks, in a small bowl, stir together the vinegar powder, milk powder, chicken seasoning, sugar, cayenne, and chipotle powder. Set aside.

Melt the schmaltz in a 6- to 8-quart pot with a lid over medium. Add the popcorn kernels and stir to coat with fat. Cover the pot, raise the heat to medium-high and cook until the kernels start to pop. Lower the heat to medium and continue to cook, shaking pan vigorously every few minutes, until the popping subsides, about 8 minutes. Remove the lid and pour the bouillon butter mixture through a fine mesh strainer onto the popcorn and toss well to coat evenly. Sprinkle the spice mixture over and season with a big pinch of salt and some pepper. Stir well to coat the popcorn evenly with the spices. Taste and adjust with salt as needed. 

From the Market

Chicken bouillon

Salted butter

Chiles d’Árbol

Powdered white distilled vinegar

Milk powder

Chicken seasoning

Spin It

• Omit the bouillon to make this vegetarian; it will still be chicken-y!

• Crushed red pepper flakes can replace the chiles d’Árbol

• Powdered malt vinegar can replace the powdered white vinegar

• There are lots of chicken seasonings on the market; feel free to improvise but n.b.: Bell’s does not contain salt. Adjust seasonings accordingly!

At Home

Butter

Sugar

Cayenne

Chipotle powder

Chicken fat (schmaltz)

Popcorn kernels

Kosher salt; freshly ground pepper

Spin It

• Unsalted butter can be substituted; season additionally with salt as needed

• Smoked paprika or Pimenton de la Vera can replace the chipotle powder

• Vegetable oil or peanut oil can replace the chicken fat