Please clarify "2 pieces, two medium sweet potatoes"

Question

Can you provide some weight or other measurement please? I'm not sure if the 2 pieces is a typo or not.
Have you tried this w a Stokes purple sweet potato? I LOVE the Fenugreek addition. I was thinking caraway.

creamtea · Answer

This likely has to do with the parameters of the website when a user enters a new recipe. You are first asked to select a quantity from a drop-down menu, then select the unit of measure such as teaspoons, tablespoons, pieces, etc. It can be confusing, but also the methodology of the website has been refined and become more user-friendly over time. Now you are able to select "(none)" as the first choice in the latter dropdown menu; had the recipe author been able to do so the redundancy of "pieces" and "potatoes" would  have been avoided. I'm certain the writer just meant two "average" sweet potatoes. Because the majority of recipe submissions are by home cooks the volumes, weights or measures depend on the individual author and his/her kitchen equipment--not everyone on the site has a kitchen scale to standardize things. As 702551 notes, it's safe to assume you can use what you find at the supermarket. I don't know how well Stokes variety would  work in this recipe. In my market they are usually smaller and, as you note, drier than other varieties. Personally I might increase the oil  somewhat to assist with the smoothness and "mouth feel."

702551 · Answer

If you think of it a different way, 2-3 ounces of a primary soup component per serving would make sense.

Anyhow the author is not likely to respond so you'll have to carry on from here.

Hope it works out.

702551 · Answer

Oh, now I see your question.It's two whole medium-sized sweet potatoes, cut up. So the total weight would be 8-10 ounces I suppose.Two literal pieces makes zero sense since each bite-sized piece might be about 3/4" in size (to fit in someone's mouth). That would be a tiny amount for four portions. Not sure a recipe author would call it a sweet potato soup with that little quantity.

702551 · Answer

Here's a query on an Internet search engine (one of those things that people used 10-15 years ago):

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weight+of+medium+sweet+potato&ia=web

and you'll see a number of opinions.

The most common range appears to be somewhere between 4-6 ounces.

The same question was asked by someone else back in 2020 and the recipe author did not respond for reasons unknown.

Since you are trying a replacement, you will need to recall your own experiences when you used the Stoke purple in other recipes as a replacement and proceed accordingly.

Ultimately, every cook's goal is to put something on the table that his/her dinner guests will enjoy, so an exact weight for a dish like this really isn't critical.

Best of luck.

cosmiccook · Answer

That really doesn't answer the question. How much is the recipe calling for? 2 whole sweet potatoes (avg. 6 oz. each?) or 2 pieces -- just asking for clarification.  If I go w Stokes purples, they tend to be denser and not as moist.

702551 · Answer

Generally speaking when vague quantities like this are provided, it's safe to assume that you can use what one would find at a typical supermarket.

Moreover, this is for a soup and ingredient quantities are usually pretty flexible for these types of preparations. The exact weight mostly matters if you were running a restaurant to maintain consistency over time and between various employees making it. For a home cook, variability between batches really isn't that critical for soup.

Best of luck.

Please clarify "2 pieces, two medium sweet potatoes"

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