Pistachio Rosewater Roasted Peaches
January is one of the hottest months of the year here in Adelaide. It’s usually around this time of the year that I’m to be found recumbent in a darkened room, under the gently swishing ceiling fan, whining about the heat and languidly waving away any requests from the ravenous family for me to attend kitchen duties. It’s also the time of year when the local parrots move in to our orchard to ravish the trees, leaving us with nothing but half-eaten fruit rotting on the ground and self-recriminations because, once again, we didn’t get around to netting them.
So far this year we’ve had just the one heat wave – although that was a doozy and resulted in an horrific bushfire in the Adelaide Hills – and for the last week we have been surprised by a spate of very mild days and quite cool nights. So – no whining from me.
However, the parrots haven’t disappointed, showing up in vast numbers to strip my fruit trees of hard, green fruit. All the apples, apricots and peaches are gone, many of the figs and most of the plums. I made an assault on the last of the plum trees myself yesterday. My presumptuousness sent dozens of the garish, green thieves scattering with resentment into nearby eucalypts, where they sat hurling shrill abuse at me until my bucket was full and I retreated, leaving them to the rest of the fruit.
Stuffed, roasted peaches with local honey.
As a result, any opportunity I might have to eat the new season peaches will have to come from purchased fruit and, while the shop-bought stone fruit might look the part, I find it rarely delivers on flavour. However, there is a simple way to enhance the taste of bland stone fruit, perfect for turning them into a sophisticated dessert, and that is to either lightly grill them or roast them (see my Vanilla Roasted Apricots).
This recipe for Pistachio and Rosewater Roasted Peaches is very much a riff on my earlier apricot dish, but is much more elegant and was inspired by an open bag of pistachios I had to use up after Christmas. The addition of rosewater gives the dish a decidedly Middle Eastern feel and if you were very good, you’d serve this with a good thick yoghurt. I served it with cream – judge me all you like!
Finely chopped pistachios for Pistachio Rosewater Roasted Peaches.
Pistachio & Rosewater Roasted Peaches
Ingredients
- 4 fresh peaches halved, stone removed
- 180 gms shelled unsalted pistachio nuts, finely chopped
- 1 tsp rosewater
- 5 Tbsp honey
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C.
- Grease a shallow oven-proof dish, place peach halves, cut side up, in dish.
- Combine nuts, rosewater and 3 Tblsp honey into a thick paste. Place large spoonful into the hollow of each peach half.
- Drizzle each half with the remaining honey.
- Bake for 20-30 minutes, until fruit soft and a little golden.
- Serve with thick yoghurt or cream.
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When I see some peaches here in Marrakech I am going to do this !!
Oh how delicious, and healthy too. Lovely way of enhancing the store bought fruit.
Haha, made me giggle picturing you picking your bucket of fruit, telling the birds…. Mine, alllll mine, I can just imagine the birds having a go at you for stealing their tukka. 🙂
Yes shop bought isn’t nearly as tasty as fruit from a home grown tree. I had the best peach of my life from a fruit tree in SA. Sounds strange but it was world’s away from anything I have bought.
I’ve been happily letting the rainbow lorikeets feast on the apple tree in our garden this year, as watching the antics of the babies that have just learnt to fly is such a delight. Your peaches look pretty delightful too!
Naughty birds! You think they’d be happy to share with you, but they sound way too greedy. My dog keeps the birds away from our garden, but the trade off is that he steals all the berries and tomatoes he can get his paws on 🙂
Your peaches sound delicious indeed. What a great combo of flavours! x
These sound incredible. I could almost smell the pistachios from that vibrant shot of them in the food processor!
wow. wow. wow. these pears look so good. You have a talent for pairing ingredients!
Simply exquisite!
It’s raining here in Queensland, so summer seems to be standing on its head here! My parents have a gorgeous mango tree in their backyard and they usually have to battle the possums to get any of the fruit – this year my Dad has had a bumper crop and NO possums! We are going to be sipping mango smoothies well into winter 🙂
I love the look of these gorgeous roasted peaches. What a simple, summery way to celebrate the beautiful fruit we have been gifted with this season.
Good luck with your parrot battles!