Lebanese mountain bread

Mix a portion of the bread flour with a teaspoon of dry active yeast, a touch of sugar and warm water at about 105 degrees to make a sponge, and mix it smooth.

Cover it and let it sit about half an hour to an hour, until nice and bubbly.

Add a spoon of olive oil, a little salt and the rest of the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until it pulls together into a relatively sticky but not wet dough ball that leaves the bowl fairly cleanly.

Knead on a well-floured surface for about two minutes, using the bare minimum of flour, to a very soft, supple, slightly elastic dough that springs back when pressed.

Roll the dough in a bowl with a few drops of olive oil to coat it, cover it and leave it somewhere warm an hour to an hour and a half until doubled in size.

Knead it again briefly to knock all the air out.

Put it in a zip-top bag and refrigerate overnight, which improves the flavour, the texture and the stretching.

Pinch off a portion slightly smaller than a golf ball and rub and press it on the surface to squeeze the air out.

Roll it out to about an eighth of an inch thick, using only enough flour to stop it sticking, since too much flour is what most bad bread has in common.

Stretch it a little by hand, then lay it over the lightly floured bottom of an upside-down mixing bowl and keep pulling it down around the dome until it is stretched as thin as possible, pretty much see-through, without tearing.

Transfer it with floured fingers into a very hot, preheated, dry cast iron skillet on high heat and cook about 45 seconds to a minute per side; lots of little bubbles form and the blisters get brown marks.

Pile them on top of each other as they finish and keep them covered with a towel or another plate, so the residual heat gently steams them and they stay moist and supple.