Running out of bread is treated as a dead end, and it is not. Bread that does not need yeast, rising time or an oven takes about twenty minutes from a cupboard with nothing in it but flour, and it is better than most bread you can buy.
The simplest version
Two cups of flour, three quarters of a cup of warm water, a teaspoon of salt and a splash of oil. Mix until it comes together, knead for two minutes, then let it sit for ten while you do something else. Divide into six, roll each one thin, and cook in a dry, very hot frying pan for about a minute a side. They puff, blister and are done. That is the entire recipe.
The better version, if there is yoghurt
Replace the water with plain yoghurt and add half a teaspoon of baking powder. The acid in the yoghurt reacts with the raising agent and gives a softer, slightly puffed bread that stays tender for longer. This is the version worth making if you have the ingredients. It is close to naan, it takes no extra time, and it rescues yoghurt that is going sour.
The pan matters more than the dough
It needs to be properly hot — hotter than feels sensible. A pan that is merely warm dries the bread out before it can puff, and dry flatbread is the only bad outcome available here. Cook them dry, not in oil. Brush or rub the oil or butter on afterwards, while they are still hot, and stack them under a tea towel so the steam keeps them soft.
What to do with it
Eat it hot with anything wet: a stew, beans, yoghurt, eggs, roasted vegetables, or just oil and salt. It also makes a wrap, a base for anything you would put on toast, and a means of eating soup with your hands. Leftovers go stale fast, so freeze what you will not eat in a day. They reheat in the same dry pan in thirty seconds.
Why this is worth knowing by heart
It removes the sentence “there is no bread” from your house permanently. Flour, salt and water are always there, and the method never changes. It also costs a fraction of a bought loaf, which is why this bread exists in some form in almost every cuisine on earth.
Flour, water, salt, ten minutes of sitting and a very hot dry pan. It is the fastest way to turn an empty cupboard into something warm, and it is the one recipe that makes every other meal in this house better.