Tuna and green onion is a delicious and popular combination. It’s often served as a sushi roll or donburi.
Either way, the negitoro does not have to use fatty bluefin belly (toro). Sure, in the US, it’s almost always served this way. Negi + toro. Makes sense, right?
But the truth is more complicated. Because originally, this classic combo was called negitoru. This verb means to chip away in Japanese. It’s a reference to the act of scraping away meat from the bones of the tuna and also of dicing the off-cuts that cannot be used for sashimi and nigiri.
The word eventually evolved over time.
In Japan, toro is not a common ingredient for this dish. It’s often a mix of lean bluefin (akami) and bigeye tuna (mebachi maguro). Cheaper versions of this dish will often use albacore and/or yellowfin tuna.
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