Tiropita strifti is the coiled cheese pie: a single long filled rope of pastry wound into a spiral, baked as one piece. The defining move is the shape. Instead of a flat layered tray or a folded triangle, the dough is rolled into a long tube around the cheese and then coiled, snail-fashion, which changes the crust-to-filling ratio and the way it bakes through, and that is the reason it stands apart from the other cheese-pie forms.
The build runs from a strip, not a stack. A sheet of phyllo is laid out, brushed with oil or butter, and a line of cheese filling, feta cut with a milder cheese and bound with egg, is piped along one edge, then the pastry is rolled tightly around it into a long thin rope. That rope is wound into a flat spiral in the pan and the whole coil is brushed again before baking. Because every turn of the coil presses against the next, the crust runs all the way through the pie rather than sitting only top and bottom, so more of it bakes to a crisp edge while the inner turns stay softer. Good execution is a coil that holds together when cut, the outer turns crisp and the rope itself cooked through, cheese set and creamy inside the spiral. Sloppy execution is a rope filled too generously so it splits and weeps as it bakes, a center coil left pale and doughy because the heat never reached it, or a roll so loose the spiral unwinds into a soggy mess on the cut, all failures specific to the wound construction rather than to a flat pie.
How it shifts is mostly scale and tightness. A large pan coil is sliced into wedges across the spiral, each piece a cross-section of alternating crust and cheese; small individual coils bake more evenly and crisp more thoroughly because no part sits far from the heat. The filling can stay plain feta or move toward a creamier blend. The cheese pie as a defining recipe, its phyllo discipline in full, and its other distinct forms, the crumbly-dough build and the everyday breakfast format, are their own subjects and each deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. The test for the coil is particular to it: a tightly wound rope, crisp through the turns, the center cooked and the cheese contained.