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Only recently, we discovered that you can make tasty flatbreads quickly -- and shockingly easily! This recipe is great for any time you realise you haven't got flatbreads/wraps/pittas/roti/tortilla in the house, but thought you did... So, this is the "emergency flatbread" recipe.

Keep it simple. You can memorise these ingredients!

These amounts serve ONE person: either one big, or two small, flatbreads. You can multiply the numbers easily to make more. It takes less than 5 minutes of active work, once you've got the hang of it, and it can fit in with whatever else you're cooking.

• 100g plain flour (or self-raising flour, which will make it a bit puffier)
• 50g water (same as 50 milliletres)
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1/2 tbsp oil (e.g. olive oil)
• Optional flavourings to add into the dough (e.g. za'atar, or nigella seeds)
• Optional topping: 1 tsp olive oil

Put the flour in a medium-sized bowl, and add the water and salt. Mix these together with a fork (or the fingers of one hand) until it gets difficult (this only takes about 10 seconds).

Then add the oil (not too much!), and use one hand to mix this well, pushing and kneading it. You don't need to "knead" it like a risen bread, you just need to get it to form a single smooth lump with no dry bits or wet bits. Since flours are often different, you may need to add a bit more flour or water. I don't.

Put a lid on top of the bowl (e.g. a plate) and leave this to sit for a short while (20 minutes, or less), to let the flour and water get properly incorporated. Leaving it for this time should help to produce a flexible flatbread. You can skip this resting if you're really in a rush - the result will be OK but might be more difficult to roll out. During the resting time, you could prepare your toppings.

Heat a flat frying pan over a hot oven hob. You want it to be hot, so the bread will cook quickly without becoming crisp. Don't add any oil. REMEMBER: hot pan, no oil.

Divide the dough into balls, one ball per flatbread.

Using a rolling pin, roll each ball out to a flat disc, as thin as you can. Mine are about 25cm across. You do need them to be quite thin, because if they're too thick they'll be a bit uncooked in the middle, and inflexible. They don't need to be perfectly circular, as long as there are no thick bits. REMEMBER: keep it thin!

Now cook them in the hot dry pan for about 30 seconds each side. You do the two sides a bit differently, so let me spell this out:

For the first side, don't press the bread down. But you can shake the pan a little to help loosen it. While it's cooking you can sprinkle a teaspoon of olive oil over it. (That will cook nicely when you flip the bread over.) Again, not too much fat/oil, do not add enough to make the pan wet.

Don't cook the flatbread too long or they'll become crisp and inflexible. REMEMBER: just 30 seconds each side should be enough, since the pan is HOT.

For the second side, DO press the bread down. Use the back of a spatula to push the bread against the hot pan, focussing on any bits of the bread that look a bit more undercooked (e.g. zones that didn't touch the pan properly). REMEMBER: press them down to get them cooked, but only after you've flipped them!

Now repeat this process for each of the flatbreads you want to cook.

Serve the flatbreads pretty quickly so they're nice and warm!

EXTRA RECIPE NOTES:

• You can do one big flatbread per person, or two smaller ones. The smaller ones are easier to roll out and easier to cook (but it'll take longer).
• Other toppings? Butter is also fine. Some things will burn too easily in this hot pan (e.g. garlic, or cumin powder) so I wouldn't add them in this same way. You can add toppings afterwards, of course.
• Why let the dough rest? You don't need to. But the flour and water have only just met each other, so even if they look evenly mixed, they probably haven't properly combined at the microscopic scale. I'm borrowing this advice from sourdogh bakery where the initial resting stage ("hydrolysis") helps everything to mix, even without kneading.
• Why do I tell you to use "one hand" with the dough? So that one hand stays mostly clean! It means you can do other stuff in the kitchen while you're also preparing this, and makes it easier to clean yourself up afterwards. Since you don't really need to "knead", you can just about get away with mixing it all one-handed.