Copyright (0000)

l00mL pomegranate molasses 5OmL cabernet vinegar
100mL verjuice
l00mL soy sauce
*75g thyme honey
Zest and juice of 1 orange 1 tsp thyme leaves
1 tsp coriander seeds, lightly roasted and ground
1 tsp black peppercorns,
lightly roasted and ground 1 tsp salt
6 quail, butterflied
Olive oil, for brushing

Combine all ingredients except quail and oil in a saucepan and stir well.
Bring to the boil over medium heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Remove and cool.
Pour marinade over quail and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Remove quail from marinade and pat dry.
Brush quail with olive oil and grill for 3 minutes each side over high heat or roast at 2200 for 10-15 minutes or until cooked to your liking.

Salad
1kg seedless watermelon
100g Kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
150g sheep’s milk fetta, crumbled
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 handful mint leaves, torn
100g toasted almonds, chopped

Dressing

25mL muscatel vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
Dice watermelon and place on serving platter.
Top with olives, fetta and onion, then scatter with mint and almonds.
Whisk dressing ingredients in a small bowl and pour over salad.
Place quail on salad, and rest for a few minutes before serving.
Serves 6.

* Thyme honey is available at Greek and Middle Eastern food stores.
* Muscatel vinegar is available at The Essential Ingredient, Crows Nest.

what i cook when....

Peter Conistis

Sydney Magazine, Issue #33, January, 2006.

Words Scott Bolles

Photography Jennifer Soo

Styling Trish Heagerty

Recipes tested by Lynne Mullins


For chef Peter Consistis, entertaining is very much a Greek family affair.

In a world of duplicated dishes and homogenous hors d’oeuvres, Peter Conistis is an original. With teasing creations such as anchovy baklava and confit tomato with truffled lobster pilafi, Conistis delivers the inspiring and the difficult to define. It is food that drags the anchor on his Mediterranean roots; perplexing purists and delighting the food adventurer.

Evidently it’s a family tradition. Conistis’s father, Kyriacos, joined the stream of immigrants working on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme in the late 1950s, where he mastered the diversion of more than just water.
“He used to cook us things like steak and eggs,” Conistis remembers, “And fried rice. But he didn’t use soy and he’d put tomato, eggplant and zucchini in it. He’d make it Greek.’

This playfulness with ingredients was copied by the next generation, albeit in a more refined way. Conistis’s most famous dish, scallop moussaka, was conceived with equal measures of inspiration, daring and chance.

“[Seafood supplier] John Susman brought some scallops in to try. I was working in the kitchen later making taramasalata and the flavours were still in my mouth and I thought, ‘that might go with this’,” he says. “I was in Greece recently and went to two restaurants that had it [the dish] on the menu.”

Not that cooking was the plan. Conistis, 38, wasn’t supposed to be in a professional kitchen at all. “Medicine and law were what they [Greek families] wanted for their children. It wasn’t the kudos. It was more ‘we’d love you guys to have what we didn’t’.” He lasted two semesters studying law.
“I remember walking out of a tort lecture thinking, ‘I don’t care about this’.” He switched to communications, mixing study with work in restaurants and a spell in the bar at Paul Merrony’s former restaurant at Circular Quay. “I asked him if I could work in the kitchen. I worked for free. Three months later I opened my own restaurant. I had more balls than brains.”

His first restaurant, Cosmos in Darlinghurst, was a revelation. It divided opinion, confusing Greek traditionalists who couldn’t put a finger on the food and delighting its legion of fans with its originality. It also offered a public glimpse of Conistis’s relationship in the kitchen with his mother, Eleni. “I wanted to pick her brains. But I didn’t want it to be a Greek restaurant.”

In the family home in Marrickville, everyone in the Conistis clan has their specialty. “Mum makes filo like no one else. There’s no such thing as a vegetarian in Greece, but she doesn’t like meat much. Her vegetarian dishes are always great. And the outdoors is Dad’s domain. Lamb on the spit, or he’ll go to the markets and buy half a swordfish.”

It’s usually left to Conistis to produce the more intricate dishes. It is, after all, his ability to jump from the simple to the serious that earned his city
restaurant, Omega, two hats and the gong for Best New Restaurant in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2005.

Conistis has done much for the promotion of Greek food, waving the culinary flag at the Olympic Games in Athens and hosting food tours to Greece. But at home it’s a more low-key affair, with people the most important ingredient. “My parents’ house was always a revolving door,” he says. “It wasnt entertaining, it was sharing with friends or relatives. When I entertain, it’s usually on Sundays for the people I really like to be with.”