【Reading】おぼろ

【English Name】Oboro

Oboro refers to an ingredient made by boiling the flesh of shrimp or fish, then finely flaking it, seasoning it, and carefully dry-roasting it until the moisture has evaporated. The name derives from "oboro" (hazy), and it is said to mean a finish even finer than "soboro" (coarse oboro).

In the world of Edomae sushi, oboro made from sand shrimp (shiba-ebi) has long been positioned as an important topping. With its pale pink color and refined sweetness as characteristics, it is prized in a wide variety of settings, such as nigiri, rolled sushi, and chirashi sushi.

Also, at sushi restaurants it is not unusual to mix oboro into rolled omelet (tamagoyaki), where it plays the role of enhancing the flavor and sweetness. Denbu is also a representative form of oboro—white fish seasoned sweetly and ground into fine particles—and is widely loved as a colorful element of chirashi sushi.

Incidentally, the "oboro" in oboro-konbu and oboro-dofu is a word expressing a state of blurred outline, used with a different meaning from oboro as a food ingredient.