¿Qué puedo hacer con jicama?

[Greeneggs&ham]

Okay, so I had to check some translation sights to see if I worded the subject correctly!

I recently purchased a big honkin' jicama at the grocery store and have it sitting in a pot of water where it has been soaking over night. Now I just need to know what the heck I'm supposed to do with it. I've found the recipe for the fried apples (although it has mixed reviews from what I can see) as well as a couple votes for eating it raw. I hear it tastes a little like an apple even though it looks exactly like a potato. I'm hoping for a winner of a recipe for my initial introduction to this plain looking tuber. Perhaps the next curious member to look for recipes for jicama will be able to find this one thread for all their jicama needs.

So start posting your favorite recipes and uses. May the best one be the one I choose first!

[not2late]

I like it raw. Peel it and slice it into slices. It can be used as chips for dip---like guacamole or salsa. Or I eat it with a squirt of lime and a dusting of chili powder.

Here's a recipe for jicama-pepper slaw:http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.c...-friendly.html (Jicama-Pepper Slaw--Induction Friendly)

I have a question for you....why are you soaking it in water?

[Greeneggs&ham]

Umm. Uh. Err.

I dunno. I read somewhere to soak it to soften it up for use in certain recipes. And those who said to soften it said it needed to be frozen or soaked overnight to make it less "tough." When I tasted them raw after soaking they tasted much more like a potato than an apple which is why I thought everyone was nuts to say they like them raw...

On a whim, I took my (pre-softened) jicama (just 6 oz to start with), sliced into french fry size sticks and fried them in about 1/2" of canola oil in bottom of frying pan over med-high heat for about 20 minutes or so. They kind of shrunk and got little brown spots all over them. I then sprinkled some seasoning salt on them thinking I'd eat them like Bojangle's fries. They were good, but they do have the faintest sweetness to them making them slightly more like apples than potatoes.

I think next time I will fry them the same way then go with the lime juice and dash of chili powder for a crunchy, sweet and spicy side dish.

But please keep the recipes coming -- a google search suggests they can be used in place of potatoes, apples, water chestnuts, etc. Seems to me like there should be dozens upon dozens of uses for them (and I still have a lot of jicama left to use up!)...

[not2late]

Oh. I don't like cooked jicama. Frying just browns them and makes them terribly greasy, imo. Boiling them makes them plain bad, imo---flavorless unless you add junk to flavor them up. However, they do make a semi-decent water chestnut substitute, but only for things that uses minced or finely chopped water chestnuts like wonton filling. Otherwise, stirfrying slices of jicama is nasty, imo---no similarity to water chestnuts at all!

So I just use them raw (no soaking) either as slices or in that slaw recipe...plus it saves me from doing extra work lol. So try them as "chips" with dip or as "crackers" for fingerfood type things. I think they work better like that.

[moniegail]

i love jicama fries and the jicama apples. i actually tried jicama hashbrowns just this morning. DH was fixing breakfast and had hashbrowns frying in the pan. they looked so good and so i cut up one of my jicamas and used a cheese grater to shred them. then set up a pan on the stove right next to his and fried them up. they were awesome!!!! i think the next time i cook dinner, i might try to fry some up like fried potatoes to see how that turns out. jicamas are hard to find around here, but thankfully we have a place near us called jungle jim's that is an international supermarket and carries all kinds of fresh produce, so every couple of weeks i go and stock up.