Common name: Porous-head eelpout

Japanese name: Norogenge (野呂玄華、野呂幻魚)

Scientific name: Bothrocara hollandi (Jordan & Hubbs, 1925)

Characteristics:

Porous-head eelpout (Norogenge) is distributed from the Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk and the eastern Yellow Sea. It lives at depths of 200~1800m. The body length is 30 cm. Its body color is light reddish-green or light brown. The dorsal fin is connected to the tail fin and then to the tail fin. Their bodies are gelatinous and slimy, and their scales are oval and reticulate.

It is caught as a bycatch in bottom trawls of the snow crab and red snow crab fisheries. Generally, the sliminess of the fish is the source of the fishy smell, so it is cleaned off before cooking, but Norogenge does not remove this sliminess. Nowadays, it is being reevaluated as a delicious fish due to its rarity and unique texture and is gaining a reputation among food connoisseurs. The number of cooking methods has increased proportionately, and it is eaten in soup, dried, simmered, fried, nabe, and kobujime.

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