Pepper Crusted Tuna w/Spicy Mayo and Asian Asparagus

I worked as a bartender in a sushi restaurant after college for a couple years to help make ends meet. While working there, I fell in love with the 911 roll or Mexican roll. It was basically a spicy tuna roll with cilantro and extra sriracha (the rooster sauce). My fiancé brought a lot of those flavors to the meal she made tonight and she did it in a 95% paleo friendly way. The only compromises made were to use a tablespoon of soy sauce to get a much needed asian flavor into the asparagus and a tablespoon of sriracha for the spicy mayo. Stricter cavemen be warned; the tablespoon of sriracha has one gram of sugar. It's a super quick recipe that takes about 15 minutes to get put together. That being said, here is what we made tonight:

From Pepper Crusted Tuna with Spicy Mayo and Asian Asparagus

Here is what you need:

From Pepper Crusted Tuna with Spicy Mayo and Asian Asparagus

Starting at 6 o'clock and going clockwise: tuna, asparagus, pepper, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sriracha, mayo, and cilantro

Start off by mixing 1 tbs of sriracha with 3 tbs of mayo. You can make homemade paleo mayo. Here is a link showing you how. If not, a couple tbs of mayo aren't going to break the overall diet.

From Pepper Crusted Tuna with Spicy Mayo and Asian Asparagus

Next, take your tuna steaks and cover them in coarsely ground black pepper. Throw them on a grill and wait until you get about a half of an inch of white color on each side before pulling them off. I like my tuna rare. Obviously, if you don't feel the same way, cook your tuna more.

From Pepper Crusted Tuna with Spicy Mayo and Asian Asparagus

From Pepper Crusted Tuna with Spicy Mayo and Asian Asparagus

That's it for the protein. Now throw your asparagus on the grill. If you can find skinny enough asparagus, you won't need to boil them before grilling. If you get some really thick asparagus, you may need to boil it for a few minutes beforehand. Drizzle some olive oil over the asparagus and add a couple cloves of garlic and about a two inch cube of ginger. My fiancé chose to grate them with the omnipotent microplane. When the asparagus looks about finished, drizzle about a tablespoon of that evil but tasty soy sauce over the asparagus and finish with fresh ground pepper.

From Pepper Crusted Tuna with Spicy Mayo and Asian Asparagus

From Pepper Crusted Tuna with Spicy Mayo and Asian Asparagus

OK, slice up your tuna into thin slices, toss some spicy mayo on top and cut up some cilantro over the fish. I like to use scissors to cut up the cilantro. It's a lot less messy. Throw the asparagus on the plate and you're good to go. This fed two of us and we kept the cost to about $10. Good luck getting 2 spicy tuna rolls for that price let alone an entire healthy paleo meal!

From Pepper Crusted Tuna with Spicy Mayo and Asian Asparagus