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Horchata the Spanish Way Recipe

Difficulty: Easy | Makes: 1 to 2 drinks

The old CHOW office was across the street from Pancho Villa, one of the better taquerias in San Francisco’s Mission district, so we’re used to Mexican horchata made from rice. But the Spanish version is made by soaking ground chufa or tiger nuts (which are not really nuts but tiny tuberous roots grown around Valencia), and then adding cinnamon and sugar.

The name supposedly comes from a remark by King James I of Aragon when he took Valencia from the Moors. He was offered a drink of the stuff and quipped, “Aixo no es llet, aixo es or, xata!” (which roughly translates into “This isn’t milk, this is gold, cutie!”). The “or, xata” turned into horchata. Supposedly.

You can buy chufa nuts from La Tienda. Bonus: they’re high in potassium and iron, making horchata a good sports drink.

INGREDIENTS
  • 1 package chufa nuts (about 3 ounces)
  • 12 ounces water
  • 3 teaspoons sugar (optional)
  • Cinnamon stick
INSTRUCTIONS
  1. Soak chufa nuts in water for 24 hours. Strain and grind the nuts in a blender or food processor to a soft paste, adding water if needed. Add 12 ounces of water and cinnamon stick. Refrigerate for two hours. Add sugar if desired and stir until dissolved. Remove the cinnamon stick and pour through a fine mesh strainer, then a fine cloth filter until the liquid has no large particles. Serve cold.
    Write a review | 3 Reviews
  • Horchata the Spanish Way Recipe
    5

    That's quite a bit less sugar than what you'd generally find in Spanish horchata. AND PLEASE DON'T ADD ICE CUBES - it should be served ice cold. Use icecubes made with actual horchata if you have to, it's madness to dilute this drink with frozen water. . I add a bit of lemon peel along with the cinammon stick in the maceration stage but both the cinammon and lemon are optional when making this 'The Spanish Way'. I made this for some Japanese friends recently and for the first time ever decided to omit the sugar entirely (being Spanish it had never occurred to me before), perhaps it was the chufas/tiger nuts I had but the resulting horchata was beautifully sweet without any at all. Tastes more Japanese this way than Spanish, unsweetened it's best appreciated ice cold from Japanese earthenware. What you haven't mentioned is that you can make a second pressing (just as you can with coconut milk). My method is a wee bit different to yours in that I add the spring water and chufas to the blender from the start and whizz them together but leave a bit of texture in the ground chufas. (I also change the soaking water several times, something I think is pretty important.) This means I can reclaim the spent chufas from the cloth add half the amount of water (you can always top up if necessary) and by whirring again in the blender the chufas give that little bit extra to the next pressing. It isn't as rich or naturally sweet as the first but it still beats many commercial horchatas and is miles better than the concentrates. (BTW, I also don't soak the chufas for more than 24 hours. Since badly stored chufas are notorious for harbouring bacteria I wouldn't advise making it with chufas that are so old that they require the longer soaking time insisted on by StriperGuy.) .Butterfly - there is still a widely available drink made from barley available along the Mediterranean - it's called Agua de Cebada (barley water) and is very similar to the barley tea common in Japan in Korea, it's just that being Spanish it has lots of sugar. As with horchata it can be made without but it stops tasting Spanish then. The medieval drinks suggested by the word "hordeāta" haven't all gone, almond horchata (for those who want to make a nut milk but can't get the chufas) is still popular and, just like the chufa version, it's an easy alternative to making soya milk (and chufa horchata - IMO - is so much more complex and satisfying than soya milk, a gorgeous, gorgeous drink, well worth the effort). I actually have a very large white marble pestle and mortar, the traditional kind which was used by my great grandmother and great aunts for making this drink and have successfully made it this way. Honestly though, I couldn't really tell enough of a difference to get me to give up the blender method. The other thing about drinking horchata 'the Spanish way' is that it is generally served ice cold in tall long glasses through a straw, often froxen and slushed, like a granita. And that's a shame. Some of those exquisite complexities get dulled when you drink it through a straw and/or when frozen. If the horchata is good have it in liquid form and savour every sip. Use the second pressing as an alternative to soy milk. Horchata is also popular added to cafe granizado (coffee granita) and is perfect for those with dairy intolerances.

  • I've only seen that false etymology of the word "horchata" (and for that matter "paella") bandied about by English language food writers. I wonder what the point is when it's well-proven (and documented in every dictionary) that the word comes from the Latin hordeāta (made with barley--which it once was). The real etymology is much more interesting, since it points to ancient and medieval beverages that were prevalent along the Mediterranean.

  • This recipe is wrong. Sugar is NOT optional and the chufas, depending on how fresh they are need to be soaked for more then 24 hours. 2 days is about right, or even three. Noone in Spain would ever drink Horchata without sugar. The cinamon however IS optional.

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