This Pie Maximizes the Best Part of Spanakopita
The New York Times
A welcome addition to the Greek Orthodox table at Easter, striftopites get their extra-satisfying bite from a high phyllo-to-filling ratio.
Lovers of Greek phyllo pies know that pleasure can hinge on a crust’s ample surface area — but the key to maximizing this? A spiral.
A standard slice of phyllo pie offers a soft filling blanketed by flaky, tender, delightfully oily crust on the bottom, top and maybe — if luck delivers an edge or corner piece — a side or two. But a spiraled pie lavishes its admirers with perfectly proportioned bites, each with a satisfying ratio of phyllo to filling.
The golden spirals known as striftopites (the collective name for “twisted pies”) will appear on many lunch tables across Greece on Orthodox Easter — this year, on May 5 — alongside the compulsory sweet tsoureki loaves and platters of spit-roasted lamb, ending 40 days of Lenten fasting. (In the Greek Orthodox tradition, that means abstaining from products derived from red-blooded animals. For some of the strictest observers, that even includes olive oil, which was historically transported in goat-skin containers.)
To make a striftopita, a cook spreads a savory or sweet filling onto thin dough, which is rolled into a loose log, then coaxed into a ruched spiral. The pie is usually baked — sometimes fried — for a crisp exterior that yields to tender filling. Lots of olive oil or, less often, butter is involved. The crevices between rings allow fat to penetrate the dough, adding flavor and flakiness. And in sweet pies, those gaps provide a path for the pastry to evenly absorb the sugary syrup.
Phyllo pies, spiraled or otherwise, arrived in northern Greece when the Greek Orthodox population left Turkey under the Treaty of Lausanne, said Anastasia Miari, who has traveled across Greece documenting traditional recipes, many of which are included in her cookbook, “Yiayia: Time-Perfected Recipes and Stories from Greece’s Grandmothers.” The spirals of layered dough remain common beyond the country’s borders, including Bulgaria’s banitsa, Turkey’s börek and Moldova’s invartita.
“Phyllo pies,” Ms. Miari said, “are the Greeks’ version of sandwiches,” similarly featuring regional variations, a range of sizes and a plurality of fillings.
