{All Around Latin America} Venezuelan Chicha Rice Milk Beverage in Celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month

Happy Monday! We’re back today with another featured recipe for the {All Around Latin America} food and culture series, this time from Venezuela. I’ve talked about Venezuela in passing and have really only shared one or so of their delicious recipes via some RD I did for Publix magazine last winter. I made some arepas for that issue and have been wanting to recreate them for you exclusively. So when Dari,  the owner of family and culture blog MamiTalks, whom I’ve known for a few years and got to know more personally on a trip to Puerto Plata, DR, I was excited! I knew she’d have some really nice pictures and have a simple enough recipe to entice you to make! 

I’m familiar with other version of this beverage and grew up drinking as a kid. This is what I love about Latin food: it’s wildly diverse with some similarities. The Latin islands in the Caribbean have nothing like this so it’s great to enjoy something from a friend’s kitchen! Enjoy it! I can’t wait to make it either. 

We welcome Dari and invite you to check out her work! 

B-

By Dariela Cruz.

I’m very excited to be participating for the first time in this cooking festival with Bren! Hope it can be a regular annual thing!

My heart and soul is in Venezuela all the time even though I don’t live there anymore. I left my country a long time ago but I keep it close to me all the time. I am raising my kids bilingual and teaching them all about their latin heritage through my Venezuelan culture which includes food of course!

I try and cook as many Venezuelan dishes at home as I can, but this is my first time making chicha.

Chicha is a drink made out of rice, flavored with cinnamon, it’s like a milkshake and it’s not fermented like in other Latin American countries. In my generation, families didn’t make it at home, we always bought it from “El Chichero”, the guy with a cart on the street that sells it. You can find it at the Plazas or at some traditional Venezuelan food restaurants.

I thought it would be hard to make at home but it’s super easy, you can make a big jug and keep it in the fridge for a week, if necessary. Every time I’m giving it to the kids, I make them repeat the name of it and remind them this is a drink from where Mami was born: Venezuela!

I hope you enjoy making it as much as we love sipping on it at home, both here in the States and in my native country.

  *This is part of an annual Hispanic Heritage Month food & culture series, now in its 4th year. Catch up on this years and previous delicious features: 

{ALL AROUND LATIN AMERICA} FOOD SERIES

*Food images c/o Dariela Cruz. 

This year’s {All Around Latin America} is especially dedicated to Elle of the blog “Elle’s New England Kitchen.” Elle passed away earlier this year and shocked us all whom knew and loved her. She was very sweet and kind to me and participated in this series (and other times I needed her to chip in) with her popular pupusas.  Though Elle wasn’t Latina, her husband is, so she was pretty well-versed in our foods, particularly El Salvadoran cuisine. In honor of her memory and joi de vivre for life and her compassion for furry little ones, we will eat well, we will love fully, we will pray with intention and take care of ourselves.  

Eat well, love unapologetically, pray with true intention, and take care of yourself.

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Enjoy

CHICHA RICE MILK 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of rice
• 5 1/2 cups of water
• 4 tablespoons of sugar
• 1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/2 cup of milk
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Lots of ice
• Ground cinnamon

Method:

-Wash the rice and let it soak on 2 cups of water for at least 2 hours or even overnight.

-Strain it and place the rice on a pot with the rest of the water (3 ½ cups) and the cinnamon stick.

-Cook in low heat for 30 minutes or more until all the water is gone. You will end up with kind of rice paste.

-Add the sugar and mix until dissolved, let it cool down.

-After the rice mix is cool bring it to the blender and add the sweetened condensed milk, the milk, the vanilla and blend well.

-Serve with lots of ice, add ground cinnamon on top and enjoy with a straw!