Spring and Summer time is full of fruits. For us it´s inspirational and we love to play with their different flavours by adding them to our veggie milks.

This week we´ve made the tigernut horchata with strawberries. The recipe is from www.monorxata.com, an artisan Valencian based company dedicated to horchata and tigernut. It is a pioneering company, involved with the Chufamix project, which works in the world of horchata with passion and love.

Ingredients

– 1 liter of water.
– 220 grams of ground tigernuts or chufa. (You can also use whole tiger nuts, but in that case you will have to soak them for 24 hours in a liter of water beforehand)
– 50 grams of organic cane sugar or 20ml of agave syrup
– A dozen of wild strawberries
Preparation

• Fill the ChufaMix container with 1 liter of water and insert the filtering glass.
• Add the ground tigernuts, desired sweetener and the strawberries.
  
• Blend the mixture with a hand blender for 2-3 minutes. Due to the large amount of tigernuts stored in the filtering glass the blender can eventually jam. If this happens, remove and re-insert slowly moving it in short up and down movements. (like milking a cow!!). You can also add the tigernuts little by little, not to clog the filtering glas.
  
• Once blended, leave it to marinate for 5 to 20 minutes.
• Mix the pulp with a wooden spoon to begin the straining process. When the pulp is quite dry, press gently using the ChufaMix´s mortar to squeeze out the last drops.
• Keep the horchata in the fridge for at least 8 hours in order to enhance the flavour.

Water temperature

It is made with natural or room temperature water. If you aren´t going to consume it right away, store it in the fridge because if not, it will expire in just a few hours.

Tips and Alternatives

When the drink has rested, you will see that a sandy sediment appears in the bottom of the container. This is the unmistakable sign of natural horchata. Just shake or mix well before serving.

When preparing the horchata with ground chufa, the blending process is more simple because the pulp is lighter. To grind the chufa, you´ll need a professional grinder (Thermomix or Conassi ) or a good manual traditional one. Go to this link for more information.

Drink marination improves its flavour, the second or third day after its preparation it will have a “gourmet” homemade horchata flavour. But when you mix the drink with fruits to make a “shake”

It´s better to drink it on the first day to save the vitamins of the fruits. Another option is to make the horchata first, marinate for a couple of days, and add the fruits later at the moment that you´re ready to drink it.

The pulp of the tigernut, or the chufa, is very sandy and fibrous so it´s not advisable to use it to make chocolate cream. It is better to add it directly to yoghurt or salads, or as an ingredient in baking recipes.

You have also a interesting tigernut pastry recipes in this recipe book (pages 87 & 91)

Enjoy cooking !