CHILLING OUT

 

Cold and sweet: horchata-mango ice cream.

August. Are you keeping cool? Getting your full ration of gazpacho? How about ice cream? I’ve got an ice cream recipe that’s a little different—made with a Spanish drink called horchata instead of with dairy milk or cream.

Horchata is a sweet, milky, icy drink famous in València, but found all over Spain. Horchata in Spain is made with chufas, tiger nuts, also called earth-nuts. Chufas are not actually nuts, but the tubers of a kind of sedge (Cyperus esculentus), a plant introduced to the València region by the Moors. 

Chufas/tiger nuts

Chufas grow underground. After digging, the tubers are washed then dried. The desiccated nuts, a little larger than almonds, are hard and dark brown. They taste like a combination of almonds and coconut. To make horchata, the chufas are first rehydrated by soaking in water. They are then mixed with fresh water, finely ground, and forced through a fine sieve. Mixed with sugar and flavored with lemon and cinnamon, the extract becomes horchata.    

The word horchata (Catalan orxata or orxata de xufas) derives from the Latin hordeata, a drink made of crushed barley. Over the centuries the drink was adapted, made variously with tiger nuts, almonds (the French “orgeat”), or rice (as in Mexico). 

Horchata is best from a horchatería, especially in València, where the drink is freshly made. But you can buy prepared horchata in cartons in almost any supermarket in Spain. In the US, you can order horchata online from Spanish import stores, such as Tienda.com. 

I seldom buy horchata because it’s loaded with sugar. But this year I discovered a version made with edulcorantes, artificial sweeteners, so I gave it a try. Served very cold, it is very refreshing on a hot afternoon. 

Horchata, either with sugar or sweetener, makes an excellent base for lactose-free ice cream. I'm thinking it would also be good in a piña colada, substituting horchata for the coconut cream and mango juice for the pineapple juice.

No ice cream maker necessary, the horchata-mango mixture is still-frozen, then whipped. This scooped version is somewhat grainy with ice crystals. The cream in the small cups, below, has added rum and Greek yogurt and is somewhat creamier and not as icy.

After beating smooth, the cream can be frozen in individual cups. Easier because you can soften only as many as you plan to serve.

Frozen fruit horchata hits the spot on a hot afternoon in August.

Tiger Nut Ice Cream

Helado de Horchata

My ice cream contains mango puree. Any pureed fruit (1 ½ cups)  could be used—strawberries, peaches, figs-- If the fruit puree is very tart you may wish to add sugar or sweetener to the already-sweetened horchata. Cornstarch adds creaminess to the frozen horchata but does require cooking then cooling. Adding alcohol keeps the ice cream from freezing hard (although 1 tablespoon makes little difference). Adding cream or Greek yogurt makes a richer cream—although it is no longer lactose-free. 

Use an ice cream freezer if you have one. Otherwise, remove the partially frozen cream from the freezer and whip it smooth before returning to freeze hard. 

You could substitute almond milk, either sweetened or unsweetened (add sugar to taste) or a combination of almond milk and (canned) sweetened cream of coconut.

Serves 4 to 6.

2 cups horchata

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 slice lemon

1 ½ pounds mangos (to make 1 ½ cups pulp)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Sugar or sweetener (optional)

1 tablespoon dark rum or oloroso Sherry (optional)

½ cup heavy cream or Greek yogurt (optional)

Place ½ cup of the horchata in a small bowl. Stir the cornstarch into it until smooth. Place the remaining 1 ½ cups horchata in a saucepan with the slice of lemon. Heat the horchata-lemon until it begins to steam. Whisk in the cornstarch mixture and continue stirring until the mixture comes to a boil. Reduce heat and cook 1 minute. Skim out and discard the lemon slice. Let the horchata cool 10 minutes.

Peel the mangos and discard pits. Cut the flesh into chunks and place in a blender or food processor with the lemon juice. Blend until pureed. Add the cooled horchata and blend until smooth. Taste the mixture and add sugar or sweetener if desired. 

Place the mango-horchata mixture in a bowl (preferably metal for faster freezing) and cover with plastic film pressed onto the surface. Chill. Place the bowl in the freezer until partially frozen, 2 to 4 hours. 

Beat the mixture again (blender or food processor) until smooth. If desired beat in rum and cream. Return the bowl to freezer to freeze solid. (For an even smoother ice cream, remove it before frozen hard and beat again until smooth.) Or, if preferred, pour the cream into 6 (1/2-cup) glasses, place them on a tray and freeze.

Soften the ice cream before scooping.  

More about horchata and chufas here (and another summertime cooler, leche merengada).

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SUMMER COOLERS, VALENCIA STYLE

Summer coolers--leche merengada and horchata.

Stop at an heladería—ice-cream parlor—anywhere in Spain to find all the usual options—helados (ice creams) in dozens of flavors, sorbetes (sorbets) and granizados (granitas or slushy ices). Cold and sweet, they are summertime treats.

But, in Valencia, beautiful port city in eastern Spain, besides heladerías, you can enjoy some different summer coolers at an horchatería, where horchata and leche merengada, meringue milk, are served.

Chufas (photo courtesy of La Tienda).

Horchata is an exotic summer drink that makes me think of Arabic souks and cushioned harem rooms. This is the orgeat of the Moors, originally sweetened almond milk. Today it is made with the chufa, tigernut. (The word, orgeat, derives from the word for sweetened barley water. Horchata in Mexico is processed from rice or different seeds, not tigernuts.) The sweet, milky drink has a pleasant flavor of coconut, tropical nuts and lemon. It’s commercially  bottled, but can easily be made at home with either chufas or almonds.

Tigernuts, also called earth-nuts, are not actually nuts, but the tubers of a kind of sedge (Cyperus esculentus), a plant introduced to the Valencia region, along with rice, by the Moors. Like potatoes, chufas grow underground. After digging, the chufas are washed then dried. The desiccated  nuts, about the size of almonds, are hard and dark brown. (Photos of chufas growing in the fields and being processed can be viewed on the web site of Chufa de Valencia http://www.chufadevalencia.org/.)

Icy-cold horchata, made from chufas.

To process for making horchata, the chufas are first soaked in purified water for 24 hours to rehydrate them. They are then ground with fresh water, allowed to soak briefly, and pressed through a fine sieve. The resulting “milk” is sweetened with sugar, sometimes aromatized with lemon, and thinned with cold water.

The chufas, once soaked and softened, can also be eaten as snack food. They are often sold at ferias, alongside sliced coconut, as street treats. They have a crisp texture, somewhat like raw almonds.

A recipe for preparing horchata appears on the La Tienda   website, where you can order the authentic chufas, imported from Valencia.  

Horchata is served icy-cold as a drink; partially frozen and blended, as granizado, slushy ice, or soft-frozen as ice “cream”.

The other Valencian cooler is not nearly as exotic as horchata, yet still has the inimitable Spanish flavors of cinnamon and lemon. Leche merengada, or meringue milk ice, like horchata, can be served as a cold drink or soft-frozen. In restaurants, I have tasted rich versions of leche merengada, in which the milk is reduced by half, then enriched with cream. But, it’s delicious without the enrichments.

Soft-frozen meringue milk ice.

Meringue Milk Ice
Leche Merengada

My original recipe for meringue milk (in MY KITCHEN IN SPAIN, the book) calls for 1 cup of sugar. Today, that seems much too sweet to me. I suggest you start with ¾ cup sugar, then taste the sweetened milk and add more sugar if you want a really sweet version.

This recipe contains uncooked egg whites. If raw eggs are a possible health hazard in your area, use pasteurized egg whites.

Serves 6.

4 cups milk
¾ cup sugar
Peel from 2 lemons
2-inch cinnamon stick
1 clove
3 egg whites
½ teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Put the milk, sugar, lemon peel, cinnamon stick and clove in a pan. Simmer, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Strain the milk into a metal bowl. Chill the milk.

Place the milk in the freezer until it is soft-frozen. Stir it occasionally to mix the frozen and liquid milk.

Beat the egg whites on high speed until they hold stiff peaks. Beat in the lemon juice.

Beat the soft-frozen milk at high speed until smooth. On low speed, beat in half of the egg whites. Fold in remaining egg whites by hand, mixing thoroughly.

Serve the ice meringue milk immediately or return it to the freezer to freeze slightly longer. It should be the consistency of soft-freeze ice cream. If allowed to hard-freeze, remove it from the freezer about 40 minutes before serving, so it begins to thaw.

Spoon the milk ice into goblets and sprinkle each with cinnamon.