Asian inspiration

I've had an obvious affinity for Asian food lately, having made it for dinner twice in a week's time. Last week it was salmon marinated in my homemade teriyaki sauce with some sauteed vegetables and fried rice.

But Monday night, we saw some great looking yellowfin tuna steaks at the grocery store and decided they would make a tasty dinner.

So we decided Wednesday night was the night for our tuna. I love, love, love tuna but I have never actually cooked tuna steaks myself so I had a little anxiety.

First, I made a teriyaki sauce for the steaks. I started with some soy and added some brown sugar to the mix. I had to heat it a bit in the microwave because my brown sugar was kind of hard. Then, I added a splash of some garlic flavored rice vinegar I had on hand as well as some chili pepper flakes, garlic powder and some pineapple juice. Then, I put in some honey to thicken and sweeten my mixture. No exact measurements here, I just added by taste.

I put the teriyaki in a shallow dish to rest my pretty little tuna steaks in, just letting them sit in it for about 10 minutes on each side. I didn't want the steaks to only taste like teriyaki.

After that, I rolled the steaks in some sesame seeds I had poured on a flat dish.

We heated the grill and sprayed it with some cooking spray after it was pretty hot and placed our steaks on the grill.

As tuna steak cooking virgins, I fear we cooked them too long, about 5 minutes on each side. They were thick and I was unsure if we could really eat them as rare as I like them -- medium rare -- since they were from a grocery store and I was unsure how fresh they were.

The steaks, admittedly, were well done but were still really good. I cooked down the remaining teriyaki from the marinade and added some pineapple chunks to pour over the tuna.

Along with our tuna, we also had some asparagus from the grill.

After washing and trimming the bottoms of the asparagus, I placed them on a sheet of foil and sprinkled some olive oil, lime juice and Tony Chachere's on top. Then I folded them up and put them on the grill to cook for about 8 minutes to help infuse the flavors into my favorite vegetable. After that, I took the aspargus stems out and placed them directly on the grill for about 5 minutes to give them a little char.

For our other side item, I looked to South Beach for an edamame salad. Matt did not like the salad because he is very opposed to radishes. I don't particularly like them but I thought there were enough other flavors to make a good dish with the garlic from my rice vinegar and the fresh cilantro. Plus, I love edamame.

Overall, I was very pleased with the meal. But now, I'll trust that I can cook those tuna steaks a little less time.