In this Erin’s Recipe Card adventure, Erin’s tackling a classic German-American side dish culled from a vintage Lutheran lady cookbook: The Heritage of Cooking: A Collection of Recipes from East Perry County, Missouri.

Beginning with a ordinary, unpretentious ingredients—baked potatoes, day-old bread, flour, butter, salt—Erin whips up a fluffy, satisfying batch of Kartoffel Kloesse. These simple potato dumplings (stuffed with a homemade crouton and boiled in minutes on the stove) pair beautifully with roast chicken, beef rouladen, and other old-fashioned Lutheran Sunday dinners.

Potato Dumplings

2 lbs. unsalted potatoes (cooked the day before and riced)

Mix thoroughly with

4 eggs (well beaten)

2 tbsp. salt (scant)

2 tbsp. onion (finely minced)

2 tbsp. parsley (finely minced)

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. marjoram

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/2 c. flour

Mold potato mixture firmly into small balls with croutons as center. (4 clices of bread, diced and toasted in butter provide enough croutons.) Molded dumplings are dropped into boiling salt water and cooked for 3 minutes. They are done when they rise to the surface. (Serves 6.)

~ Mrs. George C. Fiehler

Potatoes cooling in front of the air conditioning vent

Egg and nutmeg mixture.

Fried croutons.

Finished Dumplings.

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