chex party mix

alright, folks, you have waited patiently and now it's yours to see. here is the last time i made chex party mix using our house variation described above. keep in mind that the amounts of the seasonings that i gave up there are still in flux a bit;  i've often found that most of the ingredients benefit from just a pinch or couple of drops extra, but who measures that?

 

here are the goods - pretty basic and easy to understand even with the bad photography:

 

 

low-sodium soy sauce is something we've been using for years with good results - in fact, i have gotten to the point where i prefer it over full-sodium soy sauce. it may sound a little crazy in a batch of chex mix, but its savory, umami-filled goodness works very well with all of the flavours already there, and adds a bit of depth and dimension. i tried it once when we were low on worcestershire sauce, using a combination of both sauces, and since then it has become a staple. when we lived in spearfish, south dakota, we were able to buy no-sodium soy sauce and if you have this in your area, it might be worth a try, since i believe that often in cooking, many of the other ingredients already have plenty of salt. this is especially true in the case of chex party mix!

 

also, when purchasing the components for this latest batch, i spotted low-sodium worcestershire sauce in the aisle for the first time and grabbed it.

 

 

this is one other product that i think is perfect for chex mix, because it has a lot less salt - yet, all of the other great flavours to be expected from worsty.

 

when we make chex mix, the first thing we do is dump the cereal into a baking implement of some kind:

 

 

 

 

then put the butter/margarine and liquid ingredients (soy sauce, worcestershire sauce and hot sauce) into a saucepan and put it over medium-low heat to melt, meld and get good:

 

 

there should be three sticks in there for this batch, not two! 

a note about butter versus margarine: i've tried both and they have good and bad points on each side, and the jury is still out regarding which is better to use. if you're not careful, butter tends to give an off-taste that is kind of like it is burned, and it takes away from the final product, in spite of its rich goodness. margarine doesn't burn and seems to produce more of those crunchy-chewy, savory clumps of chex mix that everyone fights over, but it leaves a really greasy mouth-feel and is extremely unhealthy. one of these days i'll figure out which works best, but not today. for butter, we use un-salted; for margarine, we usually use imperial brand margarine and avoid "spreads" that have a high percentage of water.

 

i usually melt the butter/margarine with the dry ingredients, but this time, i tried adding them once the liquids were well-married and getting along famously:

 

 

we add the dry ingredients/seasonings:

 

 

and give it a whirl with the hand-blender:

 

 

it seems to work just as well to do it either way, so you might as well put the dry ingredients with the liquid to begin with. the wand blender is not completely necessary, since a person can just do it all on the stovtop whilst heating and stirring with a spoon, but i gave it a try this time. it seems to me that the final product tastes a little better when on the stove for the whole process because the sauce takes on a little more of a cooked flavour that adds to the savoriness (is that a word?); however, that could simply be my imagination, since the stuff cooks for an hour in the oven anyway. the important thing is to make sure that everything is well-blended and dissolved into the mix.

 

next, the mixture is carefully drizzled over the cereal and pretzels (more carefully than it appears in this photo, but it was hard to drizzle and take the picture at the same time!):

 

 

and stir everything until all pieces are well-coated: