A Feast of Ice and Fire: Roman Peaches in Honey-Cumin Sauce

Roman Peaches in Honey-Cumin Sauce

“When a serving girl brought [Sansa] her supper, she almost kissed her.  There was hot bread and fresh-churned butter, a thick beef soup, capon and carrots, and peaches in honey.  Even the food tastes sweeter, she thought.” – A Clash of Kings

This is the Roman version of the “Peaches in Honey” recipe, but the cookbook includes a modern version as well.

The cumin is cooked in a dry pan first until fragrant, and then combined with white pepper (I used black pepper, but less of it).

The honey and vinegar are cooked over the stove next until the honey is fully melted in, and the spices are added and mixed in, simmering briefly until combined.

All of the peaches are peeled, pitted, and sliced, then tossed with olive oil before the honey mixture is poured over top.  Into the oven it goes!

The recipe suggests using a large baking pan, but I used an 8×8 square pan instead.  Maybe they were trying to avoid having the peaches layered on top of each other, but there really wasn’t all that much.

Taste: 7.5 / 10

I had finally settled on an 8/10, when my husband said “no more than a 7”, so I split the difference here.  I really didn’t expect it to be that great, so maybe I my higher score was based on some pleasant surprise that peaches this was actually edible after smelling that honey / vinegar / cumin concoction on the stove.  The spices were actually quite subtle when combined with the peaches, and the dish was mostly sweet with a little bit of kick from the cumin and pepper.

Difficulty: Easy

I’m new to cooking spices in a dry pan over the stove, so I was a little worried I might overcook them at first but it wasn’t too tough to avoid.  Just watch closely and remove from heat as soon as the cumin starts to darken.

The rest is pretty straight forward – cooking the honey, vinegar and spices over the stove, peeling and pitting peaches, and tossing it all together in a baking pan before baking.

Cost: Cheap / Average

You’ll need cumin, ground white pepper, honey, white wine vinegar, dried mint, peaches, and olive oil.  Most of the ingredients are pretty cheap, but cost goes up the more spices you need to purchase.