You can also use fresh fish roe but that has to be added only after steaming. Ingredients commonly used are salted egg yolks and chopped carrots. Since that is not easily available, a little creativity and artistic license can be used here. In the old days, people used crab roe as the characteristic orange colored topping for these dumplings.

(If mixing by hand, roughly chop the shrimp, add them to the pork, and mix in one direction for 10 minutes.) Add the chopped mushrooms, the neutral. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the shrimp is well incorporated into the pork, another 2 minutes. They are pretty quick and easy to prepare. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the shrimp, and beat on low speed for 2 minutes. Add lean ground pork, salt, tapioca starch, black pepper, cold water, Chinese mushrooms, sugar, and sesame oil. After 30 minutes remove the prawns from the fridge and drain. Cover the prawns and place them in the fridge for 30 minutes. Mix in the bicarb soda/baking soda thoroughly. Add peeled and cleaned prawns in a medium-size bowl with cold water. Place the shrimp into a stand mixer bowl and stir on low speed for 5 minutes using the paddle attachment. Place them in the fridge until it is time to make the dim sum filling. You can either refrigerate and steam or steam, refrigerate, and reheat when ready to serve. Lightly grease a plate with some sesame oil. Since I had many dishes to prepare for the dinner, I actually made these the day before. I made these Siu Mai (Shumai) as part of my Four Seasons Platter representing Spring for our Chinese New Year feast. If you can’t find shumai wrappers, get square wonton wrappers. I havent tackled har gow at home yet, possibly because even 95 of all restaurants I visit fail at the texture of the translucent wrapper. These wrappers are small round wrappers about 3 inches in diameter. Aside from har gow, shumai is possibly the most requested dim sum standard in my family, with the reliable crinkly yellow wonton wrappers snugly encasing the pork-dominant filling.

They are really easy to prepare with ready-to-use Shumai wrappers you can find at the frozen section of your local Asian market. If you are a fan of these tasty bites, it is totally worth the time to make them in your own kitchen. These tasty open-faced dumplings filled with ground pork and shrimps are usually the first items to be lifted off the cart when it approaches your table at the restaurant. Siu Mai is synonymous with dimsum and it is hard to imagine the latter without it. I think it is safe to say that of all the dumplings found in a dimsum spread, Siu Mai (Shumai) is the most popular. They easy to make using store bought wrappers. Siu Mai (Shumai) are open-faced dumplings filled with ground pork, shrimps, and other add-ins.

Pork siu mai