Beef and Coconut Macaroni

As far as I can tell, his is how Karma works - nice things always end up happening to me. And when people say 'Karma's a bitch' that means that they're super jealous of me and how my boy karma always sorts me out and not them. Right? Well no, but it's a nice, unusually optimistic sentiment for me, so lets pretend that's the case for the next 5 minutes.

About a month ago, I got rid of that awful Jay Rayner book by leaving it in a bar, and last week I found a much better food book, in a better bar, and I got more drunk that day too.

The Settler's Cookbook is the story of one family's journey from India into Uganda and onwards to Britain, from the beginning of the century up to now. And while the author, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, seems a little self satisfied at times it is in a way that is a polar opposite of Rayner's tone of bland superiority. Bah, I'm still angry at him.

Anyway, history buffs, I had no idea that there was an enormous community of Asians in Uganda. Almost a quote from Big Lebowski, they were the guys who built the rail roads there. It's an incredible story, very engaging, and I love the idea of combining a family history with recipes. Everywhere she goes and everything she does is defined by a dish or meal, and so it should be, when I first moved to London I missed my grandmother - and the breakfasts she used to make me, the loaves of bread she used to bring in after work, and the pies she used to bake. However, my family history is not interspersed with graphic scenes of violence under Idi Amin. One minute she's giving a recipe for carrot pickle and on the next page there's a description of her university dorm mates being gang raped, tortured and murdered. Read the whole book if you have a strong stomach, just skim through the recipes if you don't.

Alibhai Brown's special source of annoyance is people who, like herself, have no real origin, rejecting their Indian roots. This recipe is from the last chapter of the book, served to her in the home of some ex-pats, proud of of their new found taste for macaroni.

You fry up some onions then throw in the beef and cover in water (plain water again, I already don't like where this is going) and chuck in the oven. Then parboil the macaroni, add to the beef, cover with coconut milk and mashed mango and bake for a few more minutes.

Result: I really wish I had picked one of the family recipes at the beginning of the book, a rich biriyani, or elaborate dhal, not this wierd fusion dish.

No matter how briefly I precooked the macaroni, it still ended up being overcooked, and the beef was tough. Despite the tempting smells emanating from the oven, the promised taste never materialised - never cooking anything in plain water again. Overall, not horrible, but not that great. A medium pasta bake. But I've got my eye on almost every other recipe in the book, so we'll see. If I'm taking away any lasting message is that the human spirit can overcome and adversity and there's always something to look forward to.