Recipe Review: Soy Citrus Tofu

I was first drawn to this recipe for Soy Citrus Tofu when I saw the beautiful photos of it on Instagram.  I followed the photos to a blog I'd never seen before, and I actually found several more recipes with beautiful pictures that looked really interesting. 

We decided to make this tofu dish last night and were unfortunately disappointed by the results. As you can see from my pictures, it didn't turn out as pretty as the original recipe. This was not a huge shock because nothing I cook is ever as attractive as I want it to be.  My husband is the one who actually did the cooking this time, and he made a couple of small changes. First, we added a bunch of chopped bok choy to make it more veggie-packed.  This actually worked well, adding some nice green color and a pleasant crunchy texture.   The chef also decided to cut the tofu into cubes (don't ask me why) even though the recipe gives really good instructions on slicing the tofu into planks to maximize the crispiness.  I think the tofu still wound up with a fairly good crispy exterior and a pleasantly chewy interior.

So what didn't work so well for us?  The whole oranges slices.  They didn't caramelize as well as I'd hoped, and the peel left a thick, oddly textured bit that was hard to chew and quite bitter.  This could be a result of our tinkering with the other ingredients, or maybe our oranges simply had piths that were too thick to ever work with this method.  What I can say for sure is that my kids couldn't (wouldn't?) eat them and we actually wound up picking out most of the orange pieces and tossing them. 

The sauce was delicious, somewhat spicy but not unbearably so.  It did a good job of bringing the elements together.

Final recommendation:

Try at your own risk.  If you do try it, try to choose citrus with thinner peels and maybe your results will be happier than mine were.