Gourmet Magazine had a monthly article entitled "Four Ingredients" on their last page from about 1992 until they shuttered. It was pretty much this. They also consistently made the argument that the fewer ingredients you used, the more finicky the recipe was likely to be: their classic example was the tarte tatin, a heavily execution-dependent dessert. Many of the things shown on this page are also likely shown on Tumblr disasters - those "peanut butter cups" are the sort of thing that, if you don't know how to work with chocolate, are going to disappoint you more ways than you can possibly imagine. Fans of simplicity in cooking are recommended the 1930 classic French Cooking in Ten MInutes by Eduard de Pomaine.
I really like Gourmet and in fact, that magazine was the one I chose to do my magazine publishing practical on in college. I'd forgotten the "Four Ingredients" thing, but it makes sense that the less you have to work with, the more you'd better know what you're doing. I haven't read French Cooking in Ten Minutes, but I'd love to check it out, thanks!
I miss Gourmet. A lot. Not what they were when they died, but what they were before the redesign 3 years previously. They got rid of a lot of good stuff. Pick up the Pomaine book. The philosophy is great. Just read the first few pages. I own a lot of cookbooks. Lots of them are weird. Few of them I reference. But that "what is it good for? I don't know. But it's bound to be good for something." aspect is just perfect.