Tyropita

Tiropita

Tiropita with garnish on blue glass plate
Type	Börek
Place of origin	Greece
Main ingredients	Phyllo, cheese

Tiropita or tyropita (τυρóπιτα 'cheese-pie') is a Greek layered pastry food in the börek family, made with layers of buttered phyllo and filled with a cheese-egg mixture.

It has been suggested that it descends from the Byzantine dish called plakountas tetyromenous and en tyritas plakountas (Byzantine Greek: εν τυρίτας πλακούντας) "cheesy placenta," itself a descendant of placenta (food), a baked layered cheese dish in Roman cuisine.Cato included a recipe for placenta in his De Agri Cultura (160 BC).

Shape the placenta as follows: place a single row of tracta along the whole length of the base dough. This is then covered with the mixture [cheese and honey] from the mortar. Place another row of tracta on top and go on doing so until all the cheese and honey have been used up. Finish with a layer of tracta...place the placenta in the oven and put a preheated lid on top of it.

Another theory is that layered dishes like tiropita have their origins in Turkish cuisine and may trace back to layered pan-fried breads developed by the Turks of Central Asia before their westward migration to Anatolia in the late Middle Ages. (cf. Baklava)

Another variety is the spiral Skopelos Cheese Pie in which long strips of cheese stuffed phyllo are formed into a spiral and baked or deep fried.

Tiropita can also be made in a large pan (ταψί [taˈpsɪ]) and cut into individual portions after baking. The individual form is sold in bakeries throughout Greece, where it is a popular breakfast and snack food. Alternatives to tiropita are spanakopita, a pie with spinach, as well as bougatsa or even cremidopita, an onion pie.