- Smells heavenly. (sniffs)
Dr. Rich, what sets your kettle corn apart?
- Well, it's a secret ingredient,
a couple extra pinches of love.
- [Both] No. - You can't beat that.
- It feels good. - Not this again.
Rich, you know, they're doing a fake morning show.
There are no cameras.
- I know.
It's just a fun way to start the day.
So grab a paddle partner and hop on in here.
- You know what, that does sound...
- Yeah.
♪ Troy and Abed in the Morning ♪
- [Babish] Hey, what's up, guys?
Welcome back to "Binging with Babish."
With this week, we're celebrating
9 million subscribers with kettle corn?
An odd choice, I know.
But this episode not only ends with delicious kettle corn,
it ends with Joel McHale and a wedding.
So let's start by making some baseline at-home kettle corn.
Into a large kettle or stockpot
goes three tablespoons of neutral oil
like vegetable or canola,
which we're gonna place over medium-high heat,
optionally with a couple kernels,
which, once popped, will indicate to us
that our oil is at the desired temperature.
At this point,
we can dump in the remaining 1/3 of a cup
of unpopped popcorn kernels,
dodging shrapnel as necessary
and tossing around in the oil,
shaking constantly
while we slowly sprinkle in 1/4 cup of granulated sugar.
Once the sugar's been added,
in order to prevent it
from turning into a rock-hard caramel,
we gotta cover this guy up
and keep him moving over a medium flame,
ensuring that no freshly-popped kernels
stick to the bottom and are burned.
Whoa, that's a pretty cool new effect.
Let's see that one more time.
Nifty.
It's like Commander Data is shaking the popcorn.
Anyhoo, once you begin hearing about one second pass
between the individual pops,
it's time to uncover, dump out,
heavily salt with kosher salt while still nice and warm,
and then begin to separate.
Every kernel basically has
a super thin layer of caramel on it,
so this will stick together
unless you keep it moving
when it's fresh out of the popper.
And that's pretty much all there is to it.
Freshly made kettle corn,
just like you get at your state county or local fair,
and kettle corn is itself a near-perfect invention.
So how could we possibly improve
upon an already perfect thing?
Well, we could add some complimentary flavors,
like cinnamon.
Now, of course,
you could just sprinkle some ground cinnamon
on your finished kettle corn,
but cinnamon tastes better when it's been heated.
Conversely,
you can't pop the popcorn with cinnamon in the oil,
because it'll burn.
So we're going to infuse cinnamon into our oil
by cooking it over medium-low heat for about five minutes.
You want just enough heat
so that there's a little bit of bubble-age.
You don't want anything turning dark or smoking.
And since our oil is effectively preheated,
we can just crank the heat up to medium high,
add our popcorn kernels,
slowly sprinkle in our sugar,
and shake constantly over the flame
until all of our popcorn has been popped.
Dump it on out onto a sheet pan, salt, separate, and snack.
And you're definitely not getting
a super strong cinnamon flavor with this method,
but it's really nice.
It's like eating churro-flavored kettle corn.
So that's sweet and sweet,
but what if you like sweet and spicy?
Well, then you can grab yourself a pepper,
like a serrano, jalapeno, or habanero pepper,
cut it in half,
and use a spoon to scoop out all the veins, seeds, and pith,
and just like the cinnamon stick,
drop it into our three tablespoons of neutral-flavored oil
to fry for about five minutes over medium-low heat.
You should get some nice browning on the pepper,
but again, no smoke.
Fish out your fried peppers,
which are lovely for snacking,
and then it's business as usual,
but this time with oil that's been imbued
with spicy capsaicin and peppery flavor,
which, when combined with sweet-and-salty popcorn,
as you can imagine, tastes quite good.
You got your crunch, you got your sweet,
you got your spicy, you get your salty.
I mean, that's every major food group.
But I'm still just not getting
that Dr. Rich "extra pinch of love" magic.
Why don't we invite my new fiance
and "Community" connoisseur, Jess,
to tell us what she thinks it needs?
- [Jess] Oh, I am digging this spice.
That's delicious.
But I think if we really want the authentic version,
we need to fly to LA and do this with Joel McHale.
- [Babish] Sounds reasonable enough to me.
Let's go to LA.
(air whooshes)
So, for accuracy's sake,
today we are joined by Joel McHale.
- [Crew Member] This is gonna be your camera.
- Aw, my bad.
- Action. - Action.
(Babish exhales sharply)
- So- - Action.
- So for accuracy's sake- - We're rolling.
- And because he's a really nice guy-
- And action.
- Starting now, we're joined by Joel McHale.
Thank you so much for coming out, man.
(Babish applauds)
- [Crew] Whoo!
(Crew applauds)
- Thanks a lot, Studio City Hills.
- Yeah, we're here in this beautiful rental home.
- It's beautiful.
These are also beautiful.
And this is very tasty, and I can't stop.
- I've been snacking on it.
You don't eat, like, carbs though, do you?
- Well, is...
Well, I mean, sugar is carbs, but is popcorn carbs?
- No.
Zero carbs, zero sugar, 10 grams of protein. Perfect.
- Great. Perfect.
Very excited to be here.
Thank you for having me.
- Thank you for coming, man.
So tell me a little bit about your new show.
- Thanks for asking.
- Of course.
- I can't remember.
It's called "Crime Scene Kitchen."
Okay.
- Premieres May 26th.
- Thank you.
- [Both] On Fox.
- After the finale of
some little show called "Masked Singer."
Ken Jeong sucks. (Babish laughs)
There's sets of bakers, teams of two,
and you go into a kitchen,
and something has been baked there.
There's evidence left behind.
There could be a piece of kettle corn,
a little cocoa powder or whatever it is.
They have to figure out what it is
or what they think it is,
and then they have two hours to bake it.
It is pretty impressive, and it all tasted very good.
And I ate 9,000 calories a day and it was heaven.
- [Babish] So I want to play a little "Crime Scene Kitchen"
right now. - [Joel] Yeah.
- [Babish] Which do you think was made here?
- I think it might've been kettle corn.
Or, like, a lamb shawarma.
- Lamb shawarma. He nailed it.
It's the smell, really. (sniffs)
So let's make some kettle corn.
- Let's do it.
- In this episode, your rival, really, was Dr. Rich,
who was too handsome and too nice
and too knowledgeable for you to trust him.
- Well, he's a doctor.
- Exactly.
- Yeah.
- So that's why I'm here to show you,
because I'm the anti-Dr. Rich.
- Okay.
- Uh, so..
(metal clanging)
- We're gonna start with- - God, it's going well.
(Babish laughs)
- [Babish] The best part about making kettle-
(metal clangs) - [Joel] Oh, whoops.
Sorry. Lemme get it.
I got it.
- So the best part,
my favorite part about kettle corn making...
Oh, the pilot light's out.
- Sorry.
Is the pilot light.
- Is the pilot light,
which keeps us safe from all the gas.
Which season was the gas leak on "Community?"
- [Joel] Season 4.
- Season 4.
She got me into "Community" last year during the pandemic.
- God bless her.
You should marry her.
- All I gotta do.
You know, I was thinking that you could marry us today.
Would you be willing?
- Yeah.
- Are you ordained? - Yes.
- Are you seriously ordained?
- Yeah, totally good. - Am I good?
- The universal life church I joined,
it took me almost six minutes.
- You know, as long as we don't sign a paper
maybe it's not for real.
- [Jess] If we sign a paper in front of our families,
then they'll be okay.
- He's also probably gonna just do it
so sarcastically that there's no way the state
will recognize it.
- Look guys, I'll do it. Super honest, I swear.
But you're the one that joked about it,
but we can do it right now.
- Right now? Okay.
I don't think we can actually not do that.
- Yeah, no, we only get one opportunity to
get married by Joel McHale.
- What are your names again?
(Joel laughs)
- Hold on, let's- - Oh yeah.
- Jess and Andrew, thank you for coming here today.
And, we're very excited about the party afterwards.
The reception food looks amazing.
The variety is incredible.
I know that it all seemed very quick,
but everyone here gathered is very excited
to know that you're a match made in heaven
or as we like to call it Studio City.
Anyway, so Jess,
Do you take, woof. Yeah.
(Babish chuckles)
Man, that is bald. - I'm sweaty.
- Jess, do you take Andrew to be
your lawfully wedded husband sickness and in health
and for the rest of your days on this planet,
you choose him to be your partner?
- I do.
- Great. Andrew.
- Get that on the mic.
- I do.
- Andrew.
Jess is definitely marrying down,
but do you also agree that she will be yours forever,
and you will be the greatest husband of all time
and sickness and health, all that stuff, rich or poor.
Do you take Jess to be your wife?
- I do.
- Great.
By the power vested in me
from the universal life church
and the great state of California,
I now pronounce you husband and wife.
(Crew applauds)
- Did we actually just get married?
- I guess yeah. - Legally.
- Why don't you sign this? Married.
(Babish and Jess laugh)
I'ma cross off kettle corn. - Kettle, oh.
We need a new slate.
Okay, here we go. Married.
Here we go. - Thank you.
- You can do a fake signature
if you want to really get married.
Oh okay, nevermind.
It's too late.
- [Joel] Wait, fake it. Great.
- This is the realest thing.
- That's great. You did it.
You're married.
(all applaud)
- That's a wrap on Joel McHale.
We're going on our honeymoon.
- Well, thank you so much for marrying me.
- No problem.
- Honestly didn't see that coming.
- That worked out great.
- No, that really works well.
Let's make some kettle corn, shall we?
- Let's do it.
- Here we go.
Now the best part about kettle corn
is that it is whisper quiet, the machine here.
Ah, I blew up the pilot light (beep).
There we go.
(machine whirs)
All right.
Nice and quiet.
- This is great.
We can ADR this whole (beep) thing now, right?
This isn't joking around.
- Here we go.
Here we go, ow.
Two cups of oil.
One and a half cups of kernels.
We gotta stir it.
Here we go.
Holy (bleep) that's hot!
- Yeah.
- [Babish] That's not working.
- Wow, (beep). You need gloves or something.
- Yeah probably.
- Maybe just use the thing.
- Yeah, let's just use this thing.
(bell rings)
You want to do the sugar?
- [Joel] No.
- [Babish] Okay.
Grab a cup of this.
- [Joel] Just one cup?
- [Babish] Yeah, just sprinkle it in.
Here, I'll turn down the flame a little bit.
- [Joel] No, that's all right. There it's in.
- Okay, whoa, holy shit!
(explosion booms)
- Have you done this before?
- [Babish] Uh, once.
There's some popcorn in there.
Okay, it's just burnt. - Yeah.
- No, it doesn't seem burned at all.
- Sometimes the sugar gets caught on
the high wall sometimes.
It'll cause it a little bit.
- Yeah that sugar had some fun there.
- [Helper] Oh, I'll dump it in.
- [Babish] Thanks man. Yeah, please.
- Dump it. - Dump it.
- [Joel] Now is this ruined or is it fine?
- [Babish] So, I wouldn't eat that probably.
- Did you just give yourself a new tattoo?
- Yeah, no, now they don't have to shave me
if we go get tats later today.
That'll be great. Perfect.
- Are you getting tattoos later today?
- Yeah, I think so.
- [Jess] We can talk about it.
- Man, we have the exact same afternoon plans.
(both laugh)
- All right, let's try that again.
- [Joel] The pilot's out.
Round two!
Just like your second marriage.
This is way more reasonable.
- [Babish] Yeah that works now.
- [Joel] It's still fricking hot.
We did a temperature check on the kettle corn guys.
They're all around 140.
They might have COVID or they just been cooking.
- [Babish] Oh, whoops.
Let's really get that over.
Oh, let's turn this off. There we go.
Don't want to damage y'all's equipment.
All right, we're dumping.
- Whoops.
- Sorry, there's a, holy (beep).
(Babish laughs)
- All right, is that supposed to happen?
- You mean where you fall over
on to a burning hot gigantic metal bowl?
Yes. - Yeah, no.
That's part of the kettle corn making process, right?
That happens with the, woo, okay.
All right, here we go.
We're dumping this in. We're salting it.
There we go.
- This is my favorite kind
of cooking show where someone just cooks in front of me.
So we're doing this?
- Yeah. Just give it 15 seconds of salt, right?
There we go.
- This was hard.
(Babish laughs)
- [Babish] See, we make a good team.
- [Joel] Let me know when I've done it too much.
- No, that is if you ever had popcorns too salty?
- Good? Good?
- Keep it going.
Oh yeah.
- [Joel] All right this is for this is for the,
when you guys walk out of the church.
- Oh yeah.
Kosher salt, that actually would be very fitting.
Very nice. Yeah.
- Oh, that's good.
- Let me try that.
- This is really good.
- Fresh, hot out the popper.
Well, we wanted you to have the, the kettle corn experience.
- Finally, it took this many years.
- Yeah, and the secret ingredient,
as Dr. Rich said was, "little extra pinch of love."
I think we added an extra pinch of love
because you literally married us right here.
- That's right.
- So you know that worked out.
Thank you so much, Joel.
- Thank you for having me.
- Appreciate it.
- I get to, I've touched a person.
- Oh yeah. We just did a little handshake.
That was wild.
- Get vaccinated, guys.
- Get vaccinated, that's definitely the take away.
- And definitely look up
"What's Poppin'? Kettle Corn" out of Sylmar, California.
- Sylmar.
- It's delightful because the owners,
Justin and Kenny, are really nice
and are in surprisingly good shape.
- And really let us do whatever we wanted here
which is incredible.
- Andrew almost died.
You see that?
He almost just poured this thing.
He almost fell into it.
- It's heavier than I am, so.
- That would have been a good show.
(Babish laughs)
- Well, thank you so much for coming by
and thank you, What's Poppin'.
Thank you, Jess, for marrying me just now.
Thanks Brad for coming out.
- Brad, thanks for coming all the way from Nashville.
- Yes. Good job.
- [Jess] One more sign off on where to find the show?
- [Babish] Oh yeah, yeah. Of course.
- Jess produces the shit out of this thing.
- She's incredible.
- Where should we find this show?
- Your show?
- No, your show. - No, your show.
- Oh, "Crime Scene Kitchen?" Fox.
- May 26th.
- After the "Masked Singer" finale.
And then it's on all summer after "MasterChef."
- May 26th on Fox.
- On Fox.
- Fox.
- And where can we find your show?
- Oh, it's on YouTube.
You're watching it right now.
- You're watching it right now.
- Well, thanks-
- Now we're gonna turn this on
and stick our hands in there.
- Yeah, here we go.
(explosion booms)
- [Joel] This is a beautiful home you've rented.
I can't believe how much we've broken.
- All right. - Let's see.
- That's not nearly as, that's awful actually.
I hate it.
- No, it's terrible.
- You better call What's Poppin'.
(upbeat instrumental music)