German Potato Pancakes — The Food That Carries Everything

Amma started donepezil this week. Five milligrams, once daily, taken with food. I know this medication intimately — I've dispensed it hundreds of times, counseled families about expectations ("It won't reverse the disease; it may slow progression"), watched the hope in their eyes when they hear "slow" and the grief when they understand what slow doesn't mean. Now I'm the family. Now I'm the one with the hope and the grief. I drove the prescription to my parents' house. I sat at their kitchen table — the table where I've eaten ten thousand meals — and explained the medication to Appa with the clinical precision of a pharmacist and the trembling voice of a daughter. "One pill, every morning, with breakfast." "Side effects?" "Nausea, possibly. Diarrhea. Dizziness. If any of those happen, call me." "And it will help?" "It may help. It won't cure." "But it will help." "It may slow the progression, Appa. That's the best we have." He took the prescription bottle and placed it next to the coffee maker — where he'll see it every morning, where it will become part of the routine, where the pill becomes another ingredient in the daily recipe of keeping Lakshmi Krishnamurthy present for as long as possible. Amma took the first pill on Tuesday. With idli. Because Amma takes everything with idli — medicine, news, life. "How do you feel?" I asked on FaceTime that night. "Like a woman who took a pill. How am I supposed to feel?" "Any nausea?" "I've been nauseous before, Priya. I was pregnant twice." She's fine. The pill is fine. The disease is not fine but the pill is doing what it can. I made Amma's idli that night — her recipe, her fermentation, her technique. The idli that she took the pill with. The food that carries the medicine into the body that is failing and thriving at the same time. The idli were light. The pill was small. The hope was complicated. We continue.

I don’t have Amma’s idli recipe in my apartment — her fermented batter lives in her kitchen, in her vessel, in her hands — and that night I needed to cook something that felt like what she had made: soft, plain, honest, something a body could take medicine with and feel held. German potato pancakes are what I had the ingredients for. They are flat and simple and cooked in a pan and they ask nothing of you, which was exactly right. You grate, you squeeze, you fry. The repetition was the point. Four pancakes for a pharmacist who needed, for once, to just be a person eating dinner.

German Potato Pancakes

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 2 lbs russet potatoes (about 4 medium), peeled
• 1 small yellow onion
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
• 3–4 tablespoons neutral oil (vegetable or canola), for frying
• Sour cream or applesauce, for serving

Instructions

1. Grate the potatoes and onion. Using the large holes of a box grater, grate the potatoes and onion into a large bowl. Work quickly — the potatoes will begin to oxidize.
2. Remove moisture. Transfer the grated mixture in batches to a clean kitchen towel or several layers of cheesecloth. Squeeze firmly over the sink to extract as much liquid as possible. This step is essential for crisp edges. Return the dried mixture to the bowl.
3. Mix the batter. Add the beaten eggs, flour, salt, pepper, and garlic powder (if using) to the potato-onion mixture. Stir until everything is evenly combined.
4. Heat the pan. Pour 2 tablespoons of oil into a large heavy skillet (cast iron works well) over medium-high heat. The oil should shimmer before you add the pancakes.
5. Form and fry. Drop heaping 1/4-cup portions of batter into the pan, pressing each gently with a spatula to form a flat round about 3–4 inches across. Do not crowd the pan — work in batches of 3 or 4. Fry 3–4 minutes per side, until deep golden-brown and cooked through. Adjust heat as needed to prevent burning.
6. Drain and keep warm. Transfer finished pancakes to a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Keep warm in a 200°F oven while you fry the remaining batches, adding oil to the pan as needed between batches.
7. Serve. Serve hot with sour cream, applesauce, or both. Eat while they’re still crisp at the edges and soft in the middle.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 310mg