【Reading】ねぎとろ

【English Name】Negitoro

Negitoro is a sushi topping made by chopping fatty tuna belly (toro), the meat scraped from the bones (nakaochi), or the trimmings near the skin with a knife and then mixing it with chopped scallion. It is enjoyed as a gunkan-maki (battleship roll) and thin roll (negitoro-maki), as well as in rice bowls.

Its origin dates back to around 1964. At the Minowa branch of "Kintaro-zushi" in Asakusa, Tokyo, while making hand rolls for staff meals from leftover sushi toppings, mixing scallion into the nakaochi mellowed the heaviness of the fat and proved popular with customers as well. There is also a theory that it was created by Hiroyoshi Sasaki of "Sushi Sasaki" in Ginza.

In the late 1980s, Akagi Suisan in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture, established a mass-production technique of blending oils and fats into trimmings and nakaochi. Distribution began at Tsukiji Market in 1988, and it rapidly spread to conveyor-belt sushi and supermarkets. In a 1992 industry survey, it ranked first nationwide in popularity in the rolled sushi category.

The widely held view is that the name is a compound of "negi (scallion) + toro," but there is also testimony from the president of Kintaro-zushi that it was inspired by the name of an Asakusa restaurant called "Mugitoro."