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Orange Beef Stir Fry


Looking for an Asian recipe low in sugar turned out to be more of a challenge than planned.  It seems the basis of stir fry sauces are equal parts soy to sugar to heat.  And while plenty of the new recipes tried are not extremely sweet, others were candied meat and veggies.  I find it difficult that native Asian dishes have so much sugar in their recipes.  Only Americans need sugar in their eggs in order to consume them.  After searching and searching, I finally did find a recipe low in sugar and was very excited to try Orange Beef Stir Fry

Modifications Made:
With exception to the lack of sesame seeds, the recipe was too simple to make any modifications.  In fact the only thing I was unsure was the sizes of the oranges and the omission of green onions as there was none to be had at the local store.  

The recipe did not state a quantity of orange slices, just a quantity of whole oranges themselves.  There is a difference between navel oranges (size of softballs) and a mandarin oranges and lets not even discuss clementines or all the native small oranges not sold in grocery stores.  Going with the season and based upon selection available, cara cara oranges where used in the dish.  Cara Cara oranges are between a tangerine and a large navel orange.  They are sweeter than navel oranges and easy to peel like mandarin oranges.

Scaled for Likability: Good
Look at the color vibrancy of this dish!  Don't you wish all dishes were this beautiful to look at when eating?  But as in the saying, don't judge a book by the cover.  Yes, it was not sweet as in typical Asian American meals but it was still sweet.  Sweet like pineapple on kabobs or pizza sweet.  The issue with the dish was the texture of the oranges.  They were so ripe they fell apart in the cooking process.

If this meal were to be cooked again, a simple orange based sauce would be used with canned mandarin oranges added directly before serving.  Not having access to sesame seeds locally, if they were available they should be toasted before adding into the dish.  Toasting would add a nice nutty taste to the sweetness of the oranges.

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