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Working With Phyllo
Want to impress someone with your cooking skills before they even taste your food? Or make them think you worked away for hours to make something special for them? Make them something with phyllo. Ok, you might still be cooking in the kitchen for hours, but it won’t all be time spent on phyllo. Phyllo dough is a basic flour and water dough. The dough is rolled out into incredibly thin sheets for use in making both sweet and savory Mediterranean dishes, where the phyllo dough is often used as a wrapping. Phyllo is an intimidating ingredient for many people when they first start working with it. Due to its…
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Tiropita
Tiropita, two ways, two times, practice makes perfect. Recipe testing is important when writing, developing, and sharing them. That’s how the first pita challenge ended up as a two-attempt trial. It wasn’t the result of a classic misunderstanding between my mother and me. No. Of course not. Tiropita is one of my mother’s staple go-to recipes for gatherings large or small, occasion’s special or regular, impromptu visits from friends, family or a hungry kid or grandkid. She’ll make a single large pie for gatherings, and almost always has some individually wrapped triangles in the freezer for last minute or smaller gatherings. As delicious as it is, tiropita is relatively straightforward…
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The Pita Challenge
Go to any Greek restaurant or festival and you’re likely to see at least one type of pita on the menu. I’m not talking pita bread for your gyro or souvlaki sandwich here. When Greeks say “pita” or “pites” they are usually referring to a “pie” made of a vegetable, cheese, or meat filling and phyllo dough. Pites come in a variety of configurations, and are always delicious. My personal favorites are my mother’s tiropites (cheese pie), triangular packets of cheesy deliciousness wrapped in buttery, flaky phyllo.
