It’s been a year since I moved to Houston. Exactly this time last year, I was drowning in boxes, packages and more boxes. Man, now I look back, I don’t even know how I could unpack and arrange everything in place so neatly. It was like a miracle or something. I’m a neat freak but still, if you saw the enormous amount of boxes that floated around my place back then, you would be surprised of how I did it too. Before going to this amazing Korean Rice Juice Sikhye recipe, can I just brag a little bit about life?
Luckily, after a week, I and the Lord (my wonderful cat) found each other then my life has sneakingly changed since then. I was happier and felt more alive with the appearance of Lord Cloud. He brought me joys and purpose of staying in this annoying huge city. Then 10 months later, Rain found me and I add 1 more feline in my household.
A year after my moving, I had a food blog to share with the world my cooking experiences. That accompanied by two incredible cats, a group of incredibly crazy friends and a wonderful yoga spot. Oh wait, I almost forgot. And tons of amazing Korean restaurants where I can satisfy my love for Korean food almost every other day.
There was no time that I ate that much Korean food like the past year, I’m telling you. When I’m hungry and have no idea what I should eat, here it goes Korean food. If I want to go out and eat something new, again I choose Korean food. And again, when I’m out and have nothing to do in my mind, as a default, I pick a random Korean restaurant on Yelp.
Speaking of Korean food, after every meal at my most favorite restaurant, they gave out a dessert drink for free and it really caught my attention. It’s sweet and super refresh. After shoved it down my throat, I swear it did completely clean my palate and made me to crave for more Korean BBQ meat. Since then I’m always curious what that drink is and how it was made. After many times doing research, I find out it is called Rice Juice/Punch or in Korean as Sikhye.
What is Sikhye?
Rice Juice (Sikhye) is traditional sweet Korean beverage. It’s a drink that usually served as a dessert drink or used as a hang-over relief drink. It’s very clear, sweet or semi sweet, and served cold half frozen or with shaved ice. They also include some of fermented rice and pine nuts in the drink. My version of this sweet drink will exclude pine nuts because I’m not a big fan of nuts (you don’t have to).
Ingredients used to make this rice juice
These ingredients sometimes quite hard to find in the market if you’re not a grocery-holic like me. If so, Amazon to the rescue guys.
- Barley flour: this is the main ingredient of sikhye, you can’t make one without barley flour. I bought one of this in my local Korean market but to avoid any hassle, let buy it online.
- Brown rice: I’ve been a big fan of Sukoyaka brown rice. They’re short grains, super soft, and easy to eat compared to other brands. If you’re looking for a good, healthy, and quality brown rice for your daily consumption, this is definitely for you.
- Pine nut: as I mentioned above, I did not use pine nut in my sikhye. However, if you’re a big fan of nuts then why not, just go for it.
Related recipes
- Natural Sweet Herbal Tea: a healthy tea made from half Eastern ancient products and Western ingredients.
- Assorted beans in sweet coconut milk: the name says it all. If you’re all for beans, this dessert drink is made for you.
Korean Rice Juice (Sikhye)
Equipment
- Rice cooker
- Cooking pot
Ingredients
- 1 c malt barley flour
- 8 c water
- 1 c white rice or brown rice cooked
- ¼ c sugar
- pine nut optional
Instructions
- In a medium pot, mix together malt barley flour and water. Let the mixture sit for 2 hours.
- After that, carefully strain the clear liquid that separated on top through a fine sieve lined with cheese cloth or paper towel to another pot. Discard the left over malt barley that sunk to the bottom.
- Let the strained liquid sit for another 30 minutes if it still carries over some of the white impurities. The clearer the liquid, the better the final drink is gonna be. Strain one more time to eliminate these sediments.
- Spread 1 cup of cooked rice evenly in your rice cooker. Pour the strained liquid and sugar very slowly in the cooker. Set rice cooker to warm setting and let the mixture fermented for 4 to 5 hours. If you don’t have rice cooker, you can do this in the oven on the lowest temperature setting. After 4 hours, open the lid and check whether the rice is fermented, you should see few rice grains float of top of the liquid. If not, let it continue the process for another hour.
- After the mixture done with the fermented process, strain it one more time. Keep the rice separated in cold water, store in refrigerator.
- In another pot, bring the fermented rice liquid to boil, add more water. If you want your juice looks a little bit yellow (like mine), add 1 cup. However, if you like your juice looks more white, add 2-3 cups of water (adjust sweetness with sugar if needed). Constantly skim the foam that formed on top of the surface. Boil the rice juice for 5 more minutes to stop the fermented process.
- Store rice juice in tight container and refrigerate. Rice juice tastes best with shaved ice or half frozen and cold fermented rice, pine nuts (optional). Enjoy!
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