Greece - Food & Drinks - Pastry: Tiropitakia.

Greeks and their tiropites (cheese pies) are like two hands on a belly: inseparable!

We start eating them from as early as breakfast throughout the entire day. Tiropita with a 'Greek' coffee or a 'Frappé' coffee is the eminently way to have breakfast. Many times even combined with a cigarette. It is like a 'Holy Trinity'.

Also children love these small cheese pies so much that if you bake 24 of them, within the day they are all gone. (nobody knows where they went).

Tiropita is a cultural heritage here in Greece, yet they are very easy to create.

Ingredients:

• - 500 gr. self-raising flour.
  - 200 gr. yogurt.
  - 150 gr. Anthotyros cheese.
  - 150 gr. Feta cheese. (I prefer the Epirus one because it is, as the box says, "The delicious Feta").
  - 150 ml. olive oil.
  - 1 egg.
  - (black) pepper.

Preparation:

• - (1) Pre-warm the oven to 180° Celsius.
  - (2) Mix, in a bowl, the yogurt, the olive oil and the egg.
  - (3) Add to this mixture the self-raising flour.
  - (4) Mix, in another bowl, the Feta cheese and the Anthotyros cheese.
  - (5) Bring the cheese mixture on taste with (black) pepper.
  - (6) On the kitchen counter, roll out the dough with a dough roll. (so that the dough is about 5 mm thick).
  - (7) Cut, with a 10 cm cookie cutter (or the top of a glass), equal circles out of the dough.
  - (8) Take one such dough circle.
  - (9) Add in the middle of the dough circle a tablespoon of the cheese mixture.
  - (10) Carefully fold the dough circle close (so that it looks like a half circle or a half moon). PUSH ONLY ON THE ROUND SIDE SO THEIR 'BELLIES' REMAIN A LITTLE PUFFY.
  - (11) Repeat (8) to (10) for all the other dough circles.
  - (12) Put some baking paper on the oven tray.
  - (13) Spread the tiropitakia equally on the baking paper.
  - (14) Bake the tiropitakia for about 45 minutes or until auburn (golden-brown).

Enjoy!