I’m really not sure what the deal with the ‘only three ingredients!’ recipes is. Or only four or five for that matter - the authors of those seem to take pride in putting together as few foodstuffs as possible. Seriously? Why? It’s not like a short recipe has significant benefits because you'll have to memorise it before trying to execute it. Fine, there are things wonderful made with only flour and water but that’s bread. And ‘only 3 ingredients’ does not equal easy. See mayo: oil and egg. Easy? Like hell it is.
Some dishes only take a handful of ingredients just because nothing else is needed and I’m not punching below the belt by taking roast meats as an example (roast beef = beef + salt + pepper + oven). Rugelach pastry, one of my favourites, only has flour, butter and cream cheese in it, and I hear there’s scone/biscuit (depending which side of the Atlantic you are on) dough made only with flour and cream.
Likewise, there are tonnes of things where a large number of assorted components are just thrown together and stirred about a bit. So there’s complex and there’s complicated, in a nutshell.
My scientific discourse all goes out of the window when it’s the end of the week and I open the fridge to find but three or four (miserable looking) things - then, with my tail between my legs, I’m in need of a three-ingredient-recipe. This is one of those - of course I’ve cheated because you can clearly see 9 ingredients below, but please: salt and pepper, lemon or butter don’t count because you need them ALWAYS, so I insist: a 3 ingredient recipe and a damn good one too.