This sweet, cold, creamy drink is the perfect foil for warm weather and spicy food.
TNS
By Matthew Fairman
America’s Test Kitchen
Many varieties of horchata are widely popular across Spain and Latin America. Our rice-and-almond-based version, flavored with Ceylon cinnamon, is a style typical to Mexico. It’s a cinch to make, and the sweet, cold, creamy drink is the perfect foil for warm weather and spicy food.
Toasting the almonds and cinnamon brought out their full potential, adding depth and complexity to this drink made with relatively few ingredients. Blending the water, rice, toasted almonds, cinnamon, sugar, vanilla and salt for 1 minute created a rich, full-flavored horchata, and straining the horchata through a nut milk bag simplified the usual process of straining through cheesecloth and ensured that it was perfectly smooth and creamy, with no trace of chalkiness or grit.
A bit of fresh lime zest added a vibrant, complementary brightness that played beautifully against the backdrop of rich rice and almond milk and warm cinnamon.
Horchata
Serves 4 to 6 (makes 4 cups)
1 cup slivered almonds
2 Ceylon cinnamon sticks, coarsely crumbled
3 cups water
1 cup raw long-grain white rice
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 (2-inch) strip lime zest
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 2/3 cups milk
Ice
Ground Ceylon cinnamon, for serving
1. Toast almonds and cinnamon sticks in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat until fragrant and almonds are just beginning to turn golden, 5 to 8 minutes.
2. Transfer almond mixture to a blender. Add water, rice, sugar, vanilla, lime zest, and salt and process until smooth, about 1 minute, scraping down sides of blender jar as needed.
3. Open a nut milk bag and place in a medium bowl. Pour mixture into nut milk bag, leaving bag in bowl. Close bag and drape enclosure over edge of bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to one day.
4. Lift nut milk bag above bowl to strain remaining liquid through bag. When liquid no longer runs freely, firmly squeeze bag to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids. (You should have 2 1/3 cups horchata base.) Whisk milk into horchata base. (Horchata can be refrigerated for up to three days; stir to recombine before serving.)
5. Serve horchata over ice, sprinkled with ground cinnamon.
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