Food: tyropita (cheese pie)

A post by eatbigbristol had me thinking about vegetarian dishes and not many recipes initially came to mind. This was surprising as most of the dishes I eat are veggie but they’re usually food thrown together or selected from a restaurant menu. Vegetarian dishes as intentional and known recipes aren’t that common for me but as a Greek-Australian there are plenty of traditional dishes with which I grew up. One of the most typical ones is tyropita (translated to cheese pie) and my mum’s version is wonderful and not as salty or fatty as most other ones. The dish is best used as a side rather than a main, or at least as an accompaniment:

Ingredients
Cheese mix:
6 eggs, 1 cup of milk, 150gm of cheddar, 150gm of feta, 150gm ricotta.
Salt and pepper for seasoning, filo pastry, butter (for drizzling).

Method
Mix the eggs and milk. Grate or cut up the cheese into little pieces, mix in with the milk and eggs.

Melt and spread some butter on the tray (deep dish), lay down one layer of filo pastry, put some of the mix on (you will use it to distribute between all the layers so plan accordingly), add a layer of filo pastry, sprinkle some butter, more mix, and continue to do this until the last layer on top.

Sprinkle water and butter on the final layer. Before baking cut the tyropita into diagonals on one side, and then the other (the final pattern to be rhombus shaped pieces). Rough cuts are fine. You will need to cut again when baked and this will make it easier.

Bake for around 45 minutes at 180c.

I made this dish tonight for my housemate as he is having a very late night at work. The cheeses can be changed and variety is encouraged. I used double Gloucester cheese, feta and mozarella (Sainsburys had no ricotta) and the flat certainly smells lovely.