Tiropita

A cheese pie whose filling is loosened with egg and milk, because feta alone bakes into a dry salty brick.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains feta whose rennet the source does not name, ricotta whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 500 g feta, crumbled
• 150 g ricotta or anthotyro
• 4 eggs
• 150 ml milk
• 1 packet filo pastry, about 400 g
• 150 ml olive oil, for brushing
• a grating of nutmeg
• black pepper
• 2 tablespoons semolina

Method

1. FETA ALONE BAKES INTO A DRY SALTY BRICK, which is why there is egg, milk and a softer cheese in here. Half a kilo of feta in a pie tin and nothing else comes out crumbly, fiercely salty and so firm it has to be cut with pressure. The milk and egg turn it into something that sets soft and slices cleanly.
2. AND THERE IS NO SALT IN IT AT ALL, for the same reason the spinach pie has none. The feta carries more than enough.
3. TWO TABLESPOONS OF SEMOLINA GO ON THE BASE SHEETS. It takes up the liquid the filling gives off in the first ten minutes of baking, before the pastry has set, and it is the difference between a crisp bottom and a pale damp one.
4. Feta crumbled by hand rather than blended -- the pieces should be visible in the finished slice.
5. Ricotta, eggs, milk, nutmeg and pepper whisked together until smooth, then the feta folded through. No salt.
6. A 30 cm tin brushed with oil. Eight sheets of filo laid in one at a time, each brushed with oil, overhanging the sides. The rest kept UNDER A DAMP CLOTH -- exposed filo is brittle in about three minutes.
7. The semolina scattered evenly over the base sheets.
8. Filling poured in and levelled.
9. The overhanging edges folded in over the filling, then six more sheets on top, each oiled, tucked down the sides.
10. SCORED INTO PORTIONS THROUGH THE TOP LAYERS ONLY. The filling is loose and would run out of a cut taken to the base -- which is the opposite of the baklava rule, and the reason is the filling rather than the pastry.
11. A little water flicked over the top so the sheets do not curl, then baked at 180C for 50 minutes until deep gold and firm in the centre.
12. Rested 20 minutes before the first piece is lifted. Eaten warm rather than hot; straight from the oven the filling is still molten.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Greece · All recipes