Cinnamon Rice Horchata

📝 Ingredients

• 240 g long-grain rice
• 40 g almonds
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 800 ml cold water (for soaking and blending)
• 400 ml well-chilled oat milk
• 50 g caster sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon (to serve)

🍴 Utensils

• Mixing bowl
• Blender
• Fine sieve
• 1.5 L jug or bottle
• Spoon

📖 Steps

1. The day before, rinse the rice in the fine sieve under cold water, stirring it with your hand, until the water runs almost clear. Put it in a large bowl with the almonds and the cinnamon stick broken into two or three pieces.
2. Cover with the 800 ml cold water, put a plate over the bowl and leave to soak overnight in the fridge (8 to 12 h). In the morning, a grain of rice should crush easily between your fingers: that's the sign it will blend finely.
3. Tip everything into the blender, including the soaking water and cinnamon pieces. Blend for 2 to 3 min on full power, in two batches if the jug is small, until you have a smooth white liquid with no gritty grains.
4. Strain through the fine sieve into the jug, pressing the pulp with the back of a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible: only one or two spoonfuls of thick pulp should be left in the sieve.
5. Add the oat milk, sugar and pinch of salt, then stir until the sugar has completely dissolved. The horchata should be mellow and fragrant, lightly sweet but never syrupy.
6. No need to chill it again: after soaking overnight in the fridge and with cold oat milk, the horchata is already nice and cold. The rice starch settles at the bottom as it stands: always stir or shake the jug before filling the glasses.
7. Serve in 4 glasses and sprinkle each with a pinch of ground cinnamon. Drink 1 h to 1 h 30 min before training. The horchata keeps for 3 days in the fridge in a tightly closed bottle.