Sourdough Pancakes or Waffles

Late January. Week two of the taper. The body is adjusting — small disruptions, nothing dramatic: occasional dizziness, a tendency to cry at commercials, the particular emotional rawness that SSRI reduction produces, the brain recalibrating its serotonin, the chemistry rewriting itself the way a recipe is rewritten when you remove an ingredient and the dish must compensate.

I made comfort food all week: nikujaga, oden, miso soup three times a day. The comfort food is the self-medication, the food-as-medicine that has always worked alongside the pill-as-medicine, and now the food-as-medicine is being asked to carry more weight, and the food is willing, the food has been waiting for this promotion, the food has been the understudy and is now being asked to perform the lead role.

Miya noticed the rawness. "Mama, why are you crying at the TV?" I said, "Sometimes grown-ups cry at things that aren't sad." She said, "That's weird." She is right. It is weird. The weirdness is the taper. The weirdness will pass. The weirdness is the brain adjusting to the absence of a chemical it has been receiving for twenty-four years, the brain learning to make its own serotonin again, the brain being asked to do a job it was hired for thirty-nine years ago and has been outsourcing for twenty-four of them.

I went to yoga — my own practice, not teaching — and the practice was intense, the body open in a way it hasn't been in years, the emotions flowing through the poses the way water flows through a cracked dam: not controlled, not directed, just flowing, the flow the evidence that the medication had been holding things back, and the things are now being released, and the release is both beautiful and terrifying, the way a dam breaking is both beautiful and terrifying. The question is whether the flow will become a flood. The question is the experiment. The experiment continues.

The nikujaga and oden carried the weeknights, but mornings — slow, emotionally raw mornings when Miya asked questions I didn’t have clean answers to — needed something different: something that took time, something alive, something that had been sitting on the counter fermenting quietly while the rest of us were adjusting. Sourdough pancakes felt exactly right. The starter does its own kind of chemistry overnight, and there is comfort in that: in trusting a living thing to do its work while you sleep, in waking up and finding it ready.

Prep Time: 10 minutes (plus overnight rest) | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes active | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 cup sourdough starter (fed or unfed discard)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup buttermilk (or whole milk with 1 tablespoon white vinegar, rested 5 minutes)
1 large egg
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Neutral oil or butter, for the pan or waffle iron

Instructions

Mix the overnight batter. The night before, combine the sourdough starter, flour, and buttermilk in a large bowl and stir until just incorporated. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel and leave at room temperature overnight (8—12 hours). The batter will bubble and slightly expand — this is the fermentation working.
Finish the batter. In the morning, whisk the egg, melted butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla into the fermented batter. In a small bowl, stir together the baking soda and baking powder, then fold gently into the batter just until combined. A few lumps are fine; do not overmix.
For pancakes. Heat a cast iron skillet or griddle over medium heat and brush lightly with butter or oil. Pour 1/3 cup of batter per pancake onto the surface. Cook until bubbles form across the surface and the edges look set, about 2—3 minutes. Flip and cook 1—2 minutes more until golden. Adjust heat as needed between batches.
For waffles. Preheat your waffle iron and brush with oil or butter. Pour batter according to your iron’s capacity (usually 3/4 to 1 cup). Cook until the steam subsides and the waffle is deep golden and crisp, about 4—5 minutes. Do not open the iron early.
Serve immediately. Top with maple syrup, fresh fruit, a pat of butter, or a dusting of powdered sugar. Leftover pancakes keep refrigerated for 3 days or freeze well for up to 2 months.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sourdough Pancakes or Waffles — The Food That Carries More Weight