Thanks so much for your quick response. 

Hi Judy – it’s so nice to hear you love my recipes! Yes, I’ve peeled and chopped the potatoes an hour or so ahead of time and put them in water to keep them from turning brown. Then I drain the water and don’t bother drying them before cooking.

Hi Elizabeth – yes, you need enough water for the pressure cooker to come to pressure, so 1 cup water in a 6 quart pressure cooker.

Hi Chip – it sounds like your pressure cooker did not come to pressure. When you increase the volume in a pressure cooker recipe, there’s no need to add additional cook time. So 15 minutes is way too long for pressure cooking potatoes. I think your potatoes cooked from the hot steam rather than pressure. I recommend you do a water test https://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/instant-pot-water-test/ to make sure your pressure cooker is functioning properly. Sorry you had trouble.

The 20 minutes total time was unrealistic for me. I followed the recipe and by the time the potatoes were peeled, cut as directed, and cooked under pressure for 15 minutes (5 minutes at a time) the potatoes were still not completely done. I used about 2.5 pounds of potatoes so I expected a few minutes longer, plus I know some pots are hotter than others. The extra time I put in trying to make these into mashed potatoes, I should have just stuck with the old fashion boiling method, it would have been faster and creamier. I added chicken broth to the pot instead of water and put the crushed garlic (4 cloves) in the broth under the steamer basket, it turned out tasting like a bland potato. I don’t think the garlic or chicken broth made any difference in flavor at all. I think next time I try I will cut the potatoes smaller, use water (it is free), and put the garlic on top of the potatoes so they can be mixed in during the mashing stage.

I really like the idea that these can be done in 20 minutes but they just aren’t unless you don’t count the prep time in washing, peeling, cutting, and bringing the pot up to pressure. I think I may cut the potato smaller, instead of quarters, to help with the time aspect. The time difference may also be due to using a larger pot and maybe I cut potatoes slower than I did when I was in the military pulling KP duty. I am using a 8 quart pot and I don’t know what size pot the time was based on. It may not make much difference but if the bigger pot takes longer to come up to pressure it will increase the total time for this recipe. Just don’t expect 20 minutes and it is done, there are variables to think about that alter this time. I messed up and waited to the last minute thinking “O awesome, I can do this in 20 minutes” so I did other things and made these last. Maybe my name should be Newbee but we have to learn somehow right.

I will be trying again with some of my changes (smaller potato pieces, garlic on top of potato to be mashed in) and hopefully it will work better for me. If the smaller potato idea just gets the potatoes done faster for me, I will be doing this over boiling every time. In the end I can say that this recipe did benefit me even if just a learning opportunity, so thanks for sharing your recipe with us.

Thanks for sharing your great tips Chris!

Thanks for sharing Cas! Glad you enjoy the recipe.