GCC: Horchata

And the rice theme continues.  I have mentioned before how I have wanted to try my hand at one of my favorite Mexican drink – Horchata for a while now.  And when “Rice” became the main ingredient in our Gutsy Cook October options, I could not pass up adding it to our repertoire.  

Code: I had to make it now!

I first tried Horchata when I traveled to Mexico City for work and I was in the hunt for a taco on the street. 

I know, taco to Horchata – weird, but it makes sense, since Horchata is one of the most typical drinks served in any taqueria and typical cuisine restaurants in Mexico – along with its Agua Frescas (water drinks) counterparts - Tamarindo (tamarind) and Jamaica (Hibiscus). 

And soon as I tried it, the first thing I said was “It’s almost taste like our Chicha!” 

And like any popular street drinks, Horchata varies in taste across Latin America. Although the drinks may share the same name, the flavor of each is unique to its country of origin.  You can find it made with ground almonds, sesame seeds, rice, barley or tigernuts (chufas) depending where you are at the time.

In my birth country, its called “chicha”, which is made of boiled rice, milk, and sugar and has the consistency of a creamy eggnog.  Served as a sweet, refreshing beverage with ground cinnamon and/or condensed milk toppings by street vendors, know as “Chicheros” every Venezuela kid grows up with this stuff.

So of course I had to try to duplicate it.

The Horchata, not the chicha – which I’m sure I will also try my hand at making in the future - be on the look out for that.

The most difficult part of this recipe is finding the right recipe.  With over 578,000 hits it became a rigorously process to choose which one to make, specially since you all know how big I am about kepping authenticity when it comes to traditional recipes.

After reading about 50 of them and cross-referencing with the other 162,000 results in Spanish, I decided to go to the experts – the local taqueria in town.

And found that their recipe was almost a match to David Lebovitz recipe, who adapted it from Fany Gerson book Paletas.

The end results were so good, that I made the recipe five times since.  We now have a pitcher of the stuff in the refrigerator along with the ice tea, water and that Prosseco bottle that we can’t seem to bring ourselves to pop the cork.

We better get on that…