Skip to main content

Asian Turkey Barbecue on Sesame Scallion Toasts

"You will never recognize your leftover holiday turkey when you combine it with Asian ingredients to create this delicious yet quick and easy dish. You may end up making turkey just to have leftovers for this dish!"

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sesame and meat share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 80 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

The recipe

4 muffins
Prep15 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Contains: sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the sesame oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the minced ginger and cook for 1 minute until fragrant.

  2. Stir in the chopped turkey, hoisin sauce, barbeque sauce and a splash of water. Season with salt and pepper and simmer over medium-low heat for 4 minutes, stirring, until the turkey is heated through to 165°F (74°C).

  3. Stir in half of the diced green onions and remove the skillet from the heat. Set the remaining green onions aside for the toasts.

  4. Preheat the broiler. Brush the cut sides of the split English muffins with the remaining 1 tablespoon of sesame oil and sprinkle with the reserved green onions.

  5. Broil the muffin halves 2 to 3 minutes, watching closely, until the edges are golden and the green onions are toasted.

  6. Spoon the warm turkey barbecue mixture onto the sesame scallion toasts and serve right away.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sesame + meattop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Ginger + sesametop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,531 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Sesame + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Ginger + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Turkey + meattop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, ginger, sesame, turkey, meat, pepper):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, ginger, sesame, turkey, meat, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).