‹ The Dumpling 100 › Make it at home

The Dumpling 100 · make it at home

Siu mai (open pork and shrimp dumplings)

45 min · About 24, 4 people

The easiest dim sum to make at home: no pleating, just a wrapper cupped around a bouncy pork and shrimp filling. Store-bought wrappers are what most dim sum kitchens use too.

Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, mise en place, what you already have and a shopping list.

The real one

You need

• 300 g (2/3 lb) ground pork, 25% fat
• 150 g (1/3 lb) raw shrimp, peeled and roughly chopped
• 4 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water 30 minutes, stems removed, finely diced
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp Shaoxing wine
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 24 round or square wonton (siu mai) wrappers, thin yellow ones if you can find them
• 2 tbsp finely diced carrot or fish roe, to garnish
• To serve: chili oil and soy sauce

How to make it

1. Make the filling (10 min): Combine pork, shrimp, shiitake, soy, oyster sauce, wine, sugar, salt, pepper, cornstarch, sesame oil and ginger. Stir hard in one direction for 2 minutes, then throw the mixture against the bowl a few times; this is what makes it springy. Chill 15 minutes.
2. Trim the wrappers (2 min): If square, trim the corners off to make rough circles.
3. Shape (15 min): Make an O with your thumb and forefinger and set a wrapper over it. Put a heaping tablespoon of filling in the middle and gently push it down through the O, squeezing the sides so the wrapper pleats naturally around a cylinder of filling. Flatten the top with a wet spoon and tap the base on the board so it stands.
4. Garnish (1 min): Dot the top of each with a pinch of carrot or roe.
5. Steam (8 min): Set on parchment in a steamer, 2 cm apart, and steam over boiling water for 8 minutes until the filling is firm and cooked through (71C/160F inside).
6. Serve: Hot, with chili oil and soy.

Tips

• Freeze shaped siu mai on a tray and bag them; steam from frozen for 12 minutes.
• Fattier pork makes juicier siu mai; lean pork turns dry.

Chef Amazing's own home version of siu mai, in our words; not any restaurant's recipe.