PINE TREES AND BILLY GOAT STARTER – Richard Lightman
This one comes courtesy of an Italian rock chic hairdresser who was constantly telling me about the rock star hairstyles that she was creating for photo shoots. This one could talk you into, and out of, a corner, but could she cut hair! You may wonder how pine trees fit into a hairdresser’s general routine and what significance a Billy goat has to do with Italian recipes and Rock and Roll but here goes. Apparently Lucinda, that was her name, used to play amongst the pine trees in northern Italy when she was little and collected pinecones which she would take home to her Mama. In these pinecones were pine kernels, which is the essence, along with basil leaves, oil and garlic, of pesto sauce. This is frankly an unlikely story as there is no evidence that she came from Italy in the first place let alone ever being there but the recipe she gave me, along with a few adjustments, is worth the effort.
As to the Billy goat, this refers simply to the addition of goat’s cheese to the dish but I am led to believe that goats cheese, though rich and smelly as it is, does not come from the male or ‘billy’ goat but comes from the milk of female goats or ‘nanny’ goat. However, according to Wikipedia – the font of all unreliable knowledge, the terms of billy and nanny goats determining the sex of goats went out of service years ago and the proper terms are ‘doe’ and ‘buck’. You might be interested to know that a castrated male goat is a ‘wether’. Then again you might not.
Back to the matter at hand; first you must prepare the home-made pesto. You will need some pine nuts or kernels as they are sometimes referred to, some fresh basil leaves (that basil plant is sure coming in for a battering), fresh garlic, your finest olive oil hiding away in the back of the cupboard, salt and pepper and a pestle and mortar. Pestle and mortar can always be replaced by a rock and a hard place but I’ll leave that one to you.
Take a handful of pine kernels and crush them up as finely as possible. Add olive oil until you get a smooth paste, not too runny, not too dry. Crush three cloves of garlic and wear an extra one around your neck to ward off vampires. If you are already a vampire, ignore the last instruction. Add salt and pepper to taste but this one may need two or three pinches of salt to get the flavours going. Chop up 10 or more fresh basil leaves and put them in as well. Mash up your mixture and put it aside until you need it.
This next step is dead easy but sometimes difficult to find the ingredient. Try a deli or a cheese specialist shop.
Get 100 grams of hard goat’s cheese and chop it up into little cubes about the size of a half an olive. What size olives am I talking about? Well if you took a sugar cube and cut it into four you would be somewhere in the zone. These size descriptions are getting out of hand so you cube the cheese to any size you like. It is very important that use hard cheese or the whole dish becomes a gooey mess. Set aside your cheese cubes and don’t go looking for a pineapple to serve them with, (which side of the seventies are you from?) until you need them.
Now cook up some spaghetti, about 250grams. If I’ve mentioned the method before, please ignore the following.
Boil up enough water to completely drown your pasta. Add some salt to get the water to boil at a slightly lower temperature and put a tablespoon of oil in to help the pasta to maintain integrity and not stick to itself. Put the spaghetti into the boiling water and cook for 9 – 11 minutes, subject to preferred texture (you either like it soft or like cardboard – it’s up to you) then drain.
Put the spaghetti in a bowl and mix it up with the pesto sauce you made earlier. Mix in another handful of pine kernels but keep them whole. Put servings of this on individual plates and sprinkle the goat’s cheese cubes on the servings. Now garnish with a few whole basil leaves and serve.
If this is served on small plates, you have yourself a starter. If you go large, we are looking at a main course.
This only goes to prove that hairdressing has its benefits.
Here is a list of ingredients:
Two handfuls or about 30 grams of pine kernels.
3 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
250 grams of spaghetti
100 grams of hard goats cheese.
Fresh basil leaves
Salt and pepper
Playlist whilst cooking:
Whispering Pines – Johnny Horton
In the Pines – Dolly Parton
Johnny B Good – Chuck Berry (he was in the evergreens and it doesn’t get any more Rock n’ Roll than this)
In fact anything by Chuck Berry
The Goat Song – Counting Crows
This one comes courtesy of an Italian rock chic hairdresser who was constantly telling me about the rock star hairstyles that she was creating for photo shoots. This one could talk you into, and out of, a corner, but could she cut hair! You may wonder how pine trees fit into a hairdresser’s general routine and what significance a Billy goat has to do with Italian recipes and Rock and Roll but here goes. Apparently Lucinda, that was her name, used to play amongst the pine trees in northern Italy when she was little and collected pinecones which she would take home to her Mama. In these pinecones were pine kernels, which is the essence, along with basil leaves, oil and garlic, of pesto sauce. This is frankly an unlikely story as there is no evidence that she came from Italy in the first place let alone ever being there but the recipe she gave me, along with a few adjustments, is worth the effort.
As to the Billy goat, this refers simply to the addition of goat’s cheese to the dish but I am led to believe that goats cheese, though rich and smelly as it is, does not come from the male or ‘billy’ goat but comes from the milk of female goats or ‘nanny’ goat. However, according to Wikipedia – the font of all unreliable knowledge, the terms of billy and nanny goats determining the sex of goats went out of service years ago and the proper terms are ‘doe’ and ‘buck’. You might be interested to know that a castrated male goat is a ‘wether’. Then again you might not.
Back to the matter at hand; first you must prepare the home-made pesto. You will need some pine nuts or kernels as they are sometimes referred to, some fresh basil leaves (that basil plant is sure coming in for a battering), fresh garlic, your finest olive oil hiding away in the back of the cupboard, salt and pepper and a pestle and mortar. Pestle and mortar can always be replaced by a rock and a hard place but I’ll leave that one to you.
Take a handful of pine kernels and crush them up as finely as possible. Add olive oil until you get a smooth paste, not too runny, not too dry. Crush three cloves of garlic and wear an extra one around your neck to ward off vampires. If you are already a vampire, ignore the last instruction. Add salt and pepper to taste but this one may need two or three pinches of salt to get the flavours going. Chop up 10 or more fresh basil leaves and put them in as well. Mash up your mixture and put it aside until you need it.
This next step is dead easy but sometimes difficult to find the ingredient. Try a deli or a cheese specialist shop.
Get 100 grams of hard goat’s cheese and chop it up into little cubes about the size of a half an olive. What size olives am I talking about? Well if you took a sugar cube and cut it into four you would be somewhere in the zone. These size descriptions are getting out of hand so you cube the cheese to any size you like. It is very important that use hard cheese or the whole dish becomes a gooey mess. Set aside your cheese cubes and don’t go looking for a pineapple to serve them with, (which side of the seventies are you from?) until you need them.
Now cook up some spaghetti, about 250grams. If I’ve mentioned the method before, please ignore the following.
Boil up enough water to completely drown your pasta. Add some salt to get the water to boil at a slightly lower temperature and put a tablespoon of oil in to help the pasta to maintain integrity and not stick to itself. Put the spaghetti into the boiling water and cook for 9 – 11 minutes, subject to preferred texture (you either like it soft or like cardboard – it’s up to you) then drain.
Put the spaghetti in a bowl and mix it up with the pesto sauce you made earlier. Mix in another handful of pine kernels but keep them whole. Put servings of this on individual plates and sprinkle the goat’s cheese cubes on the servings. Now garnish with a few whole basil leaves and serve.
If this is served on small plates, you have yourself a starter. If you go large, we are looking at a main course.
This only goes to prove that hairdressing has its benefits.
Here is a list of ingredients:
Two handfuls or about 30 grams of pine kernels.
3 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
250 grams of spaghetti
100 grams of hard goats cheese.
Fresh basil leaves
Salt and pepper
Playlist whilst cooking:
Whispering Pines – Johnny Horton
In the Pines – Dolly Parton
Johnny B Good – Chuck Berry (he was in the evergreens and it doesn’t get any more Rock n’ Roll than this)
In fact anything by Chuck Berry
The Goat Song – Counting Crows