Cookaholics Bulletin Board

My local Hispanic market sells gigantic sweet potatoes. I finally bought one out of curiosity - it must be 4 inches thick and weighs about 2 pounds, so now I have to figure out how to cook it. I am considering pressure cooking it, because I should be able to do it whole. It would require an electric knife to cut through this thing otherwise. The question is how long do I pressure cook it? I am seeing times for regular sized sweet potatoes at 15 or 18 mins, so I an considering 25 or 30. Anyone want to take a more educated guess?

Thanks,

--Lisa

Is it white or orange fleshed? Why do you want to PC is whole? Just curious, no helpful hints as I have never been fond of boniatos.

Lisa,

I've never tried to PC a whole potato (sweet or otherwise), so no personal experience here. Just ... don't forget to pierce it.

Wait, you need to put water in for the PC to work, no? How do you PC a whole sweet potato?

It is a regular American style sweet potato, just about 3x in size to what I am used to. I would definitely use water in the PC... maybe 1/2 or more, and put it in a small rack to elevate it. I found lots of PC recipes for whole potatoes and sweet potatoes, so I think it will work It is mostly about the timing. One guy was using large nails driven into the potato to push heat inside, but that seems dangerous.

I wanted to cook it whole because it will take a cleaver and a rubber mallet to cut the thing in half.

--Lisa

It's not uncommon to put nails into potatoes when baking them.
http://www.seriouseats.com/talk/2011/05 ... -work.html
http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-160-Potato ... 0000VLUL2/

A common nail may not be the best idea, but a purposely designed potato nail* shouldn't be a problem. Remember this isn't a microwave.

*I own no potato nails.

Speaking of things that one needs above-average upper body strength to cut, I've done whole acorn squash in the slow-cooker. I just pop it in and let it cook for 6-8 hours. I have no idea if that would work for something solid like a sweet potato.

I had one of those gigantic potatoes in Texas (natch) at a steak restaurant. It was baked and came on its own plate. I wonder if you can nuke and then bake? Let me know if the PC works, this would be a good option for summer time when I don't want to heat the house.

I wouldn't suggest nuking. Microwaves penetrate, at most, 3/4" into a solid object, so you'd end up cooking the outside layers and leaving the inside untouched.

Me, I'd just bake it in the oven for 2 hours.

As for nails, make sure not to use galvanized ....

I will give the PC a shot next week and let everyone know how it comes out. No nails. I am avoiding the oven for this because it is already 86 today, so I would rather not heat up the house to that extent, even with the toaster oven.

Thanks!

--Lisa

This thing has been sitting in the back of my fridge for a month so I finally gave it a try. It took 40 mins to get fully soft!

I did 25, than 5, and then 10 since I had given up on it for dinner. It might have been ready at 35 but I was throwing my hands up at that point.

On the bright side, it didn't explode and cooked through nicely. It will be had for dinner reheated later in the week. We went ahead without it after the 30 mins mark.

--Lisa