Horchata

Page: www.davidlebovitz.com/2011/06/horchata-recipe-mexican-rice-drink/

Cuisine: Mexican | Course Type: Beverages

(1 review)

Tags: rice cinnamon

Recipe Review

Who doesn't love horchata?

A comment that @snoopy made in reference to making her own rice milk made me realize that it might be possible to prepare our own horchata.

To make this, you first grind up rice, then you soak it (over night, for us it was about 24 hours) with cinnamon stick, then you grind the softened rice in the blender. Our initial rice grinding didn't do much to the grains, but the second grinding, after it soaked, really pulverized it.

After that you add sugar, then milk. The recipe suggests 3/4 C or 1C. We tried 3/4 C, but it was a bit too sweet. Nonetheless, it is delightfully refreshing.

Two steps are a bit of challenge. First is filtering out the pulverized rice - our chemex coffee filters were too fine, but a paper towel worked.

The second challenging step is cleanup. Imagine all that rice debris in the bottom of the blender. My dear s 13-daughter helped to clean it up by sending all that debris down our plumbing - oh well.

Our hispanic market's horchata have HFCS, and we are encouraged about finding a healthier version.

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Comments

snoopy - 19th May 2012
Glad to inspire! I've never had or heard of horchata -- can't argue with cinnamon in my rice milk, though. I might try this without the first grinding step (my blender is very powerful, so much so that I would end up with rice flour, which I have used it to make periodically). I am confused about one aspect of the recipe -- since you are essentially making rice milk, why is more rice milk added at the end?

Queezle_Sister - 20th May 2012
Horchata is a mexican drink -- real yummy, but sometimes too sweet.

snoopy - 20th May 2012
Ok, so after reading your review, and another horchata recipe from a cook book on my shelf, I tried a hybrid version. I soaked 1/4 c. short grain brown rice, 1/4 c. slivered almonds, about a 1/2 inch piece of lime zest, some ground cinnamon (no cinnamon sticks on hand), and 3 pitted dates over night in 2 cups water. Then I poured everything in the blender, whirred it up, and strained the milk through a tea towel (to catch rice flour/almond meal particles - I bet these leftovers would work in baked goods like people use okara, soymilk leftovers). Very tasty and not too sweet!

Queezle_Sister - 21st May 2012
Your modifications sound fabulous.

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