Watch party openers that take fifteen minutes

The opener is the plate you put down between the front door and the start of the match. The brief is short. Fifteen minutes of active work, hot when it lands, eaten in five. If a guest sits down with a plate of your opener and does not get up until after kick off, you have done it right.

Flatbread is the most generous opener you can serve. A par baked flatbread, a smear of barbecue sauce, a layer of shredded chicken, a handful of cheese. Six minutes in a hot oven and it comes out browned and bubbling. Cut into squares, served on a board. People can take a piece without committing to a meal.

The quesadilla is the same trick in a different format. Tortilla, cheese, filling, tortilla. A hot dry pan, three minutes per side, sliced into quarters. The cheese melts, the tortilla blisters, the filling steams. Eight quarters from one quesadilla feed four people for the price of two tortillas.

Skillet rice is the move when the apartment kitchen does not have an oven free. Pre cooked rice, a hot pan, sausage or shrimp, vegetables, soy or chili paste. Five minutes of stirring and the dish is plated. It looks like more food than it is.

Four openers that take fifteen minutes from cold pan to served plate, no matter what else is happening in the kitchen.