Greek Cheese Pie (Tiropita)

Elena Butuc

This recipe is one of the many variations of the Greek Tiropita pie, from what I've seen on the internet, there are so many versions. This one seemed particularly more interesting to me as it contains white Bechamel Sauce - one of my favourites.

It is the 'eat without being able to stop' sort of pie, so very, very good, soft, tender and equally delicious either warm or cool. I really think you should try it.

The picture was supposed to show the layers of cheese and dough, but I made the mistake of letting my husband taste first. He didn't have the patience to let the pie cool down, so I wasn't able to cut it and take an illustrative photo of the layers :)

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Helper recipes

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Bechamel Sauce Recipe

1 serving

Ingredients

Metric US

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Phylo dough sheets

1 piece

I used about 6-7 sheets, you can use puff pastry as well, rolled out in a thinner layer, though

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Butter

100 g

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Yellow cheese

200 g

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Salty cheese

300 g

or salty sheep's milk white cheese (Romanian Telemea)

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Egg

5 pieces

Step by step

Step 1

Prepare the Bechamel Sauce, make it a bit more runny, you can add 100 extra ml of milk. While it's still hot, stir in 150g grated yellow cheese, combine and chill - you can mix occasionally so that it cools down quicker.

Step 2

Once the sauce has chilled, tip in the eggs, one by one, mixing well after each one.

Step 3

Then incorporate the grated cow's/sheep's milk cheese and mix to blend. This will be the pie filling.

Step 4

Melt the butter and grease a deep rectangular baking tray. Line the tray with a sheet of phyllo, like in the photo, with the edges coming out. Grease with a lot of butter.

Step 5

Spread 1/4 of the filling in the tray in an even layer.

Step 6

Top with 2 layers of pie dough, grease well with butter between them, spread 1/4 of filling. Repeat the procedure. At the end, the pie consists of the following layers: 1 pie sheet+1/4 filling; 2 pie sheets+1/4 filling; 2 pie sheets+1/4 filling; pie sheets+the last 1/4 filling. In total, 4 layers of pie sheets and 4 layers of filling.

Step 7

Over the last layer of filling, fold the edges of the first pie sheet that are still sticking out of the tray. Top with 50g grated yellow cheese, spread evenly. Prick with a knife the whole surface, so that it doesn't expand too much in the oven. Bake at medium temperature of 180-200 degrees C.

Step 8

Remove from the oven when golden brown, notice it gets smaller as it cools down. Let chill completely, then turn onto a cutting board, slice and serve - it's delicious, either warm or cool.

Tip - If you are using puff pastry, roll it out into thinner layers, divide the filling in 3 parts and the top layer won't be filling, but pastry, brush with eggwash and spread over sesame seeds.

Enjoy!