I Don't Give a Furikake About Football
I take umbrage with single use kitchen appliances, spices and specialty items. They clutter kitchens and sit around past their expiration dates because you needed it for that one dish once. But sometimes I can't help myself. I recently bought furikake from Trader Joe's and I'm trying to resist buying multiple for backup because Trader Joe's does not keep everything forever. I still might. I had furikake when I was in Hawaii last year when I ordered fancy fries at my hotel's happy hour. The fries were delicious and the furikake gave them a little umph along with the special sauce. Since then it's been on my radar as something fun and different. I bought the jar of furikake from Trader Joe's and promptly...did nothing with it.
But let me tell you, I love snacks. So much so I can't keep them in the house. And no snack is dearer to my heart than homemade chex mix. Which only really is made during the holidays at my parent's house. While looking up hot wing recipes (yes, I don't care about sports but I do love me some chicken wings) I stumbled across this Food52 recipe for Furikake Chex Mix Snack and my heart stopped. Of course as I was making it, and I had ideas to tweak it as I went. Never one to have just one thought, my amended recipe is below.
Furikake Chex Mix Snack
Dry snack mix:
6 ounces Rice Chex cereal
6 ounces Corn Chex cereal
1 6.6 ounce bag Pepperidge Farm Goldfish of your choice (I like cheddar)
6 ounces pretzels (I used flat pretzels that I had on hand)
1 16 ounce package of lightly salted peanuts
Syrup:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 pinch kosher salt
Other ingredients:
1 1.7 ounce bottle Nori Komi Furikake (Trader Joe's! Hmart? Amazon?! Also I used maybe closer to one ounce)
Fresh cracked pepper and crushed red pepper (for some more zoushing and spark to combat the sweet syrup)
2 sheet pans, whatever will fit in your oven
Directions
Preheat oven to 250°F.
Make the syrup: In a medium pot over medium heat, heat butter, corn syrup, oil, sugar, soy sauce, and salt, stirring until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat to cool a bit while you prepare the dry ingredients.
In a very large bowl (I needed two), combine the Chex cereals, Goldfish, pretzels, and peanuts. Give the dry ingredients a good mix (bottom to top) with your hands.
Carefully add the liquid ingredients to the large bowl and, with gloved hands (if using gloves, or just get in there!), give everything a good mix, bottom to top. Once the mix is sufficiently coated with the sauce, sprinkle half of the furikake and toss until everything is evenly coated. Sprinkle the remaining half of the furikake and give it another toss. Divide the mix evenly onto two sheet pans; before putting the pans into the oven sprinkle lightly with salt, fresh cracked pepper and crushed red pepper.
Bake in the oven for about 1 hour until the mix is dry, removing the trays every 15 to 20 minutes to toss thoroughly. The cooking time will depend on humidity, as well as how crispy you like your mix. (It has taken me up to 1 1/2 hours on humid days.)
Once done, remove from oven and cool completely on racks. Store in an airtight container or zip-top bags
The BreadList - a collection of things I've been reading, making and watching to recently.
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