Gluten-Free Non-Dairy Sunflower Seed Crackers

Pazo was a pan-Mediterranean restaurant in Fells Point/Harbor East that closed in 2016. Why did it close? Because it was one of my favorites, and somehow my affection for a place dooms it to failure.

As far as I'm concerned, small plates are the way to go when dining out. Appetizers are usually more inventive and interesting than entrees, and I'd rather have 2-3 (ok, 4-5) of those than a slab of protein served over a starch. If the menu lists mostly appetizers/small plates/tapas, chances are good that I will like the place. (The food has to be good, too, of course.) Pazo had tons of tapas-style options and we ate there a number of times. While all of the food was delicious, my favorite nibble was the sunflower seed crackers. I loved the crisp texture, the light sweetness, and the toastiness of the seeds. Lucky for me, the recipe is on the interwebs. I adapted it to fit with my mostly gluten-free, lactose-intolerant life, and I think my version is as good as the original.

Gluten-free Sunflower Seed Crackers

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup gluten-free flour

Pinch of salt

3 large egg whites

1/4 cup non-dairy butter substitute, melted (I used original Earth Balance sticks)

2 cups sunflower seeds 

Whisk together the sugar, flour, and salt. Whisk in the egg whites until well combined. Dribble in the butter substitute a bit at a time while continuing to whisk. Chill the batter for one hour. 

Preheat oven to 375F.

Spread a thin layer of batter on a parchment-lined baking sheet and sprinkle with the sunflower seeds. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until firm and browned. Let cool for a few beats and score into 2" squares. Break apart the squares when the crackers are completely cool.

Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days--if they last that long.

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Posted on Minxeats.com.

Gotta Chuckle

I just finished reading a City Paper review of Centro Tapas Bar.

Back in May of 2007, former Sun critic Elizabeth Large commented that changes at Pazo might indicate that the tapas craze has peaked. At that time, Pazo was probably one of a handful of Baltimore-area restaurants serving tapas-style small plates. I thought the comment was ridiculous because from my ongoing observation of the NY restaurant scene, the small plates movement was chugging along, and if it's not peaking in NY, it's nowhere near peaking in a relative backwater like Baltimore. And of course more and more restaurants serving both traditional Spanish-style tapas and otherwise-ethnically-inclined versions on the theme are popping up regularly.

Personally, I love the idea of small plates. I enjoy when my palate is stimulated by several different flavors in the same meal, which is why I'm such a big fan of dim sum, the rotating sushi bar at Kyodai, Pazo, Korean panchan, and order multiple appetizers in place of a single entrée at dinner. How about you? What do you think about eating small tastes of several items as opposed to one big plate of food?

Wine Baskets

Mr Minx and I took Minx Brother to Pazo for a belated birthday dinner last Thursday. We were happy to see that their menu seems to have gone back to their original tapas concept, with dozens of selections arranged under category headings like "bread" and "cheese" and "seafood" and only a handful of full-sized (and priced) entrées. I happen to like tapas very much. With Pazo's return to its strong suit, and the recently opened Tapabar in Little Italy, it's good to see that Sun critic Elizabeth Large's frequent proclamations that the tapas "fad" has gone out of fashion is not correct.

The food was as good as ever at Pazo, but there was one new element to the presentation: the weird little wine basket pictured above. What an awkward and unnecessary piece of tablewear! It takes up the space of three bottles, so it had to be placed on a separate little table that was brought up to abut ours. And it takes two hands to pour - one to hold the basket handle, and one to hold the neck of the bottle so it doesn't roll out of the basket. Because it was so awkward, we did not dare pour our own wine, which forces the servers to be extra attentive. Luckily, as they are pretty much constantly bringing new plates to the table, they can be. But would this work in a different sort of restaurant?

The only purpose I can see for having a wine basket is to keep the wine on its side and sediment at the bottom of the bottle, but really, how much sediment forms in bottles of recent vintage? And who cares about sediment in an $18 bottle of wine?

Happy Anniversary to Me

Yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary, so we wanted to dine someplace special. We decided on Pazo, the latest venture by local restaurateur Cindy Wolf.

For my birthday in 2003, we tried out her Charleston. It was meh. After hearing so many wonderful things about the place, we thought we couldn't go wrong. But the staff was so everpresent as to be suffocating, the dining room was too brightly lit, we were too close to the open kitchen that was even more brightly lit, and the food was...ok. I was extremely disappointed with two things in particular: my "salad" of wilted spinach that turned out to be a huge pile of cooked spinach without much else. I was anticipating mostly raw spinach that had been tossed with a warm vinaigrette, but no, this was cooked all the way through. Spinach has an astringent quality to it that comes out at a point about mid-way between wilted and cooked-to-death, and this pile of dark green leafiness was highly astringent. The second thing that turned me off was the extreme gluey quality of the sauces. They tasted fine, but our lips were still prone to sticking together hours after the meal.

Despite that, we tried Ms. Wolf's second restaurant, Petit Louis. We liked it so much we've been back three times. The food is wonderful (apart from the occasional gluey sauce) and the whole francophilic atmosphere is charming.

Now to Pazo. We figured it could be hit or miss for us, but how badly could they screw up the myriad small plates that make up Spanish tapas? No screw ups at all, as far as we could tell. We were a bit overwhelmed by the menu, which offers sixty-nine items in eleven categories (not including a dessert menu, which we did not see), so we wimped out and took advantage of "Pazo's Grand Table for Two," a steal at $49. We received eleven dishes: eggplant dip, whole wheat fougasse, shrimp with garlic & tomato, romaine hearts, grilled swordfish, pinchitos andalucia, slow-cooked lamb, pane di ceci, grilled mushrooms, fresh mahon, and crème catalan. This was washed down with a bottle of Bobal/Tempranillo, Rozaleme (Requeria) 2003. The eggplant dip was pure heaven - smoky roasted eggplant pureed to an ethereally smooth texture and flavored with a touch of cayenne and extra virgin olive oil. The shrimp with garlic and tomato featured small but flavorful shrimp in a highly garlicky sauce, what every "shrimp scampi" aspires to be. The pinchitos were skewered bits of cumin-scented pork with a red pepper aioli and the slow-cooked lamb was as tender as pot roast and served with the worlds most garlicky mashed potatoes drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. The grilled mushrooms were smoky and unusual, redolent of rosemary, and bedded with chopped arugula in a tart lemony dressing. The pane di ceci was a chickpea pancake, cooked in such a hot pan that it had a flavor akin to the Chinese "wok chi," and was topped with a banyuls onion marmelade. Oh, so wonderful, but I must confess that chickpeas hate me and my digestive system both. The creme catalan was our dessert, a lemony custard with a bruleed top, the tangy lemon and the burnt caramel making sweet music together in my mouth.

But enough about the food. Go try it. The prices are shamefully cheap, including those on the extensive wine list (there are bottles listed for $16!). The decor is extremely hip and trendy, dark and clubby with Spanish/Mediterranean influences. It gets noisy, so go early if you want a quiet romantic dinner. If you like noise, go late in the evening, when the first floor lounge is transformed into a dance floor.

Pazo
1425 Aliceanna St
Baltimore, MD 21231
(410) 534-7296