Vinegar Salt Burnt Butter Popcorn with Cracked Pepper

Difficulty: Easy | Prep: 3 min | Cook: 7 min | Total: 10 min | Serves: 4 | Dietary: Gluten-Free, Vegetarian

Popcorn is the fastest snack in the house and the easiest one to do badly. Browning the butter first is the whole trick, because it turns nutty and toasty instead of just greasy, and it gives Chooki's Vinegar Chicken Salt something to cling to. Sharp, buttery, a bit peppery. Gone in about four minutes.

Step 1: Pop the corn

Put the oil and three kernels in a big heavy pot over medium-high heat and put the lid on. When those three pop, tip in the rest, give the pot a shake so everything sits in one layer, and put the lid back on with a small gap for steam to escape. Shake it every twenty seconds or so. Pull it off the heat when the pops slow to about three seconds apart, roughly three minutes, and tip it straight into a big bowl.

Step 2: Burn the butter

Wipe the pot out and drop the butter in over medium heat. It will foam, go quiet, then the milk solids on the bottom will turn golden brown and it will smell like toasted nuts. That is about two to three minutes. Take it off the heat the second you see brown flecks, because it goes from nutty to bitter in about fifteen seconds.

Step 3: Toss and season

Drizzle a third of the butter over the popcorn, sprinkle over a third of the Chooki's Vinegar Chicken Salt, and toss with your hands. Repeat twice more. Layering it like that seasons the whole bowl instead of soaking the top handful. Finish with the cracked pepper and the parmesan if you are using it.

Tip: Eat it within ten minutes. The butter softens the popcorn as it sits, so make it when people are already in the kitchen, not an hour before.