Coconut and Black Pepper Vegetable Curry

It's the end of the week, and supplies are running low. If we can't make it to a fresh market by Friday we are usually scrapping something together.

This is a very different sort of curry to what we are used to, but very tasty nonetheless. The recipe is for cauliflower and spinach, but we used what we had on hand: 3 small potatoes, a few florets of lacto-pickled cauliflower, and a handful of swiss chard.

Most of our curries are big and bold, a complex dance of spices and contrasting flavours. This has very little spice, just mustard and cumin seeds fried in hot oil upfront, and a good dose of black pepper.

To the spiced oil add in the potatoes and cauli, stir fry it for a few minutes, then add a few chopped cloves of garlic, a minute more, then add a coconut milk and plenty of ground black pepper and a big pinch of salt.

Turn it low and after 5 minutes or when the potatoes are almost cooked, dump in the greens. I also added a handful of fresh fenugreek from the garden, which adds a nice nutty hint if you can't get your hands on curry leaves.

Another 5 minutes or so and take the lid off, turn up the heat to thicken the sauce, and serve! Here it's dished up on basmati rice, with our own fermented lemon pickle on the side.

You can make a lot with a little. If I had to stock a kitchen from scratch, I'd start with a well-stocked spice shelf. The options and variations are endless.