As kids, my sister and I used to love this sweet, creamy tyropita. I did not find the recipe my mother used since I have never made this particular pie until Costas and I happened upon the mention of Tyrinis, the traditional cheese-eating day, the last non-vegan Sunday before Kathari Deftera, the colorful beginning of the Lent preceding Greek Easter (May 2 this year).
As far as cheese pies are concerned, we often make the crunchy Lazy Woman’s Pie. This galette-like cheese treat is the epitome of the day we devote to phyllo making during our Kea Artisanal Cooking vacation; all participants learn how to roll phyllo and the crunchy pie we whip up is such a delight!
My mother’s tyropita must have been similar to the well-explained one I found online, accompanied with a video that you can follow easily, even if you don’t speak Greek.
Since we roll our own phyllo and hardly ever make pies with commercial phyllo I had not kept up with the latest technique of spraying the sheets with seltzer or water, a very interesting suggestion that somehow prevents them from drying out completely and becoming like paper, as they usually do.
I make the creamy base using my basic olive-oil-yogurt béchamel. The olive-oil-egg wash that is brushed on the top layer is the same one we use for the delicious Chicken Pie and it makes a very big difference to the commercial phyllo.
Serves 6-8 as main course, and 10-13 as meze (11 X 15 inch –30 Χ 40 cm– pie) (more…)