BAR BITES
Bar stools were in – and our search was on for the perfect perch, some serious snacks and something stirred or shaken. Pre-lockdown, we met the team at Civil and Naval, Lyttlelton.
The team at Civil and Naval in Lyttelton share their best cocktails and a little something to go with them
When Louis Dyer first opened Civil and Naval right after the earthquakes it was important to him that it was a place to come into and forget about the flattened city. So, taking a building that was historically home to DH Ludlow Civil and Naval tailors, they made full use of the abundant historic-building materials floating around at the time to create somewhere that’s simultaneously cosy and out-there hip. Peer closely at the curios and salvage finds and you might find them labelled with their source, such as Bell’s Pharmacy or 1913 Norton Buildings. “Both in spite of, and thanks to, the rampant red-zoning of Lyttelton post-quake, Civil and Naval can feel like it’s been there forever, a nod to our town’s storied past,” says Louis.
It’s a casual place with a tonguein-cheek vibe. “The team has always been made up of rascals,” he adds. “If a cute dog comes in at lunch we'll say hi, or when a total tune comes on in the evening we'll have a little boogie – then we'll get you a drink and thank you for your patience.”
After years in restaurants Louis says he has a wandering palate and admits that with the rise of fooddelivery services and myriad nicheseeking restaurants, the options can be staggering. “Perhaps the cure to indecision is small bites – why have one when you can have ten?” he says. “When writing menus we ask, ‘What do people eat with drink’ and end up all over the world before boiling it down to two pages. Tapas, meze, antipasti, cicchetti, chaat, izakaya, dim-sum – small plates might be new here but they're old everywhere else.”
CAULIFLOWER CHEESE SERVES 6 AS A SIDE DISH / PREPARATION 15 MINUTES / COOKING 45 MINUTES
The cauliflower cheese was actually a place holder on a winter menu that made it to print when we ran out of time to come up with something more mind-blowing. That said, it sold so well that it's a classic we have to keep on through the colder months (though its popularity never waned even through summer). Maybe it's the nostalgia that keeps it ever-seasonal? With brown-butter notes and general old-timeliness, both this and the Buttered Old Fashioned are united in taste and tempo. Best served in front of an open fire, vinyl on the radiogram filling the room, a cigar prepared as digestif – or streaming Mad Men on your laptop, curtains closed, in bed.
2 large cauliflowers (or 3 smaller ones),
broken into florets olive oil
100g unsalted butter
100g standard flour
1 sprig fresh sage, finely chopped a pinch of ground nutmeg
1½ litres whole milk
500g cheddar, grated flat-leaved parsley, to serve sourdough bread, to serve
Arrange the cauliflower in a large rectangular baking dish. Drizzle with a good glug of olive oil and a healthy amount of flaky salt and cracked black pepper. Bake at 180°C for 25-30 minutes or until soft and browning at the edges.
To make the sauce, add the butter to a large pot. Heat gently, stirring frequently, until lightly browned. Add the flour and mix well to form a smooth paste. Add a drizzle of olive oil if the mixture becomes too thick.
Add the sage and a few fine gratings of nutmeg (about a pinch; if you can taste it you’ve added too much). Add 1 cup of milk stirring constantly until it’s incorporated, then continue to add the milk about 1 cup at a time, stirring constantly until all the milk is incorporated. Ensure you scrape the bottom of the pot to prevent burning.
Once all the milk is added, lower the heat to minimum and add the cheddar in small batches – add about a handful at a time to avoid the sauce splitting.
Once cooked, remove the cauliflower from the oven and turn the oven up to 250°C. Pour the cheese sauce over the cauliflower and jiggle the pan to combine. Season well with salt and pepper and return to the oven for 10-15 minutes or until it begins to brown at the edges.
Allow to rest for 5 minutes and then garnish with flat-leafed parsley and olive oil. Serve with warmed crusty sourdough to mop up any leftover cheese sauce.
SERVED WITH BUTTERED OLD FASHIONED SERVES 1
60ml brown butter-washed bourbon 15ml 1:1 sugar syrup or liquid stevia 3-4 dashes Fee Brothers Old
Fashioned Bitters citrus slices or orange peel, to serve
Put all the ingredients in a mixing glass. Add ice and stir for about 2030 seconds until chilled and diluted. Strain over fresh ice. Garnish with orange oil and dehydrated citrus slices, or the peel of an orange.
BROWN BUTTER-WASHED BOURBON 170g unsalted butter
1 x 700ml bottle bourbon
(we use Buffalo Trace)
Put the butter in a saucepan on a medium heat. Stir constantly, but gently, until toasted and releasing a nutty aroma. Transfer immediately to a heatproof bowl to cool but not solidify.
Put the brown butter into a large, freezer-proof container and add the bourbon. Stir to combine. Leave uncovered to cool completely, then seal and freeze the mixture for a minimum of 3 hours although 24 hours is best. At this stage the butter will be solid, while the bourbon remains liquid. Using your hands, or a sieve, break up and remove the butter from the bourbon, then strain through cheesecloth to remove all solids. Bottle the bourbon, label, date and store for up to a month – if you can stop yourself.
The frozen butter can be stored in a freezer and used to make amazing bourbon-chocolate chip cookies.
POLENTA-CRUMBED CALAMARI WITH WASABI & GREEN TEA MAYO SERVES 4 / PREPARATION 30 MINUTES / COOKING 2 MINUTES
The calamari is based on a salad my parents served in their first restaurant, an upmarket hotel just outside of Melbourne, called Athelstane. We adapted our Green Thumb cocktail from Meehan's Bartender Manual, adjusting the ratios for the Kiwi palate and freshening it up a bit with a few local ingredients. Green tea on matcha, ginger on apple, wasabi on fennel – this dish/drink pair works because they’re analogous rather than contrasting.
FOR THE WASABI & GREEN TEA MAYO 500g Kewpie mayonnaise
45g wasabi paste (we use S&B brand) 5g matcha powder
Combine all ingredients and set aside.
8 squid tubes
1 cup polenta
½ cup rice flour
½ cup cornflour
½ tablespoon caraway seeds ½ tablespoon salt canola oil, for frying salad, to serve (we use soft herbs and leaves such as coriander, radish greens and beetroot greens mixed with mesclun, thinly sliced radish and fennel fronds)
Split and score each squid tube in a diamond pattern, then cut into four vertically. In a shallow bowl, combine the polenta, flours, caraway and salt. Thoroughly dredge the squid in the flour mixture. Deep-fry in batches in canola oil at 200°C for 1-2 minutes until curled and crispy on the outside. Drain thoroughly.
To serve, smear a heaped tablespoon of the mayonnaise onto each plate. Stack crispy squid and salad greens. Season to taste.
SERVED WITH GREEN THUMB COCKTAIL SERVES 1
30ml Matusalem Platino white rum 15ml St Germain elderflower liqueur 22ml fresh green apple juice 15ml fresh lemon juice
2 dashes Bittermens Celery Shrub 1 teaspoon 1:1 sugar syrup or liquid stevia ¼ teaspoon matcha powder (available in the health food section of any good supermarket) soda, cucumber and herbs, to serve
Put all the ingredients in a shaker, add ice and shake for about 10 seconds until chilled and diluted. Double strain into a highball glass over fresh ice. Top with soda and garnish with a slice of cucumber, soft herbs and a paper or metal straw.
FOR THE SUGAR SYRUP
1 cup white sugar 1 cup water
Put the sugar and water in a saucepan on a medium heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool, then bottle, label, date and store for up to two weeks.
“Perhaps the cure to indecision is small bites – why have one when you can have ten?”