Traditional Cantonese Siu Mai 燒賣 dumplings are steamed pork dumplings that often include shrimp and mushrooms and are topped with minced carrots, green pea, or fish roe. This type of dumpling is popularly enjoyed in Dim Sum restaurants or at street food stalls. They are called siu mai because in Chinese, Siu Mai means "to sell quickly" and they usually do because they are such a tasty food that is easy to make and even easier to eat! At the dim sum restaurant, they will usually come in a bamboo steamer, whereas in a street stall, they may be served in a cup with skewers to eat, or served already on a skewer for easy travel and eating!

For me and my hubby, siu mai is a dish that we always ordered whenever we went with our families and friends to dim sum, a staple that you simply need to get in order to have a complete and satisfying dim sum experience. Other dim sum staples include cheung fun (steamed rice noodles) and har gao (crystal skin shrimp dumplings). Since the start of the COVID19 pandemic, I have been slowly learning to recreate our favorite dim sum dishes at home, from ha cheung (steamed rice noodles with shrimp) to lo bak go (steamed/pan-fried turnip cake), and now siu mai!

Try some of my other dim sum recipes:
Shrimp Cheung Fun
Chinese Turnip Cake 

The filling for siu mai is very similar to our Shrimp & Pork Wonton filling in that it involves shrimp and pork and similar seasonings, and for the wrappers you can also use wonton wrappers. However, if you are able to find siu mai wrappers at your local Asian super market, I highly recommend using those as they are even thinner than wonton wrappers and lends to a much more authentic siu mai texture. 

STEAMED SHRIMP & PORK SIU MAI

INGREDIENTS:

• ​16 oz ground pork
• 8 oz minced shrimp (peeled and deveined) - (5 oz minced, 3 oz of the shrimp pounded into shrimp paste)
• 5 rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, minced
• siu mai wrappers (or wonton wrappers)
• green peas
• masago fish roe or minced carrots
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 4 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1.5 tbsp sugar
• 1. tsp white pepper
• 2 tsp chicken bouillon powder
• 4 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 4 tbsp shiitake mushroom water or vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1. ​In a large mixing bowl, add the ground pork, shrimp paste and minced shrimp, minced rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, light soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt, sugar, white pepper, chicken bouillon powder, cornstarch, baking soda, shiitake mushroom water (you can also use water or vegetable stock), sesame oil and olive oil. Mix it until it becomes sticky and you can see the meat fibers breaking apart. Cover with cling wrap and put into the fridge, allow to marinate for 4-6 hours. 
2. To wrap the siu mai, place the square wrapper in the palm of your hand and place about 1 tbsp of filling into the center of the wrapper. Bring the edges of the wrapper upwards and cup the filling in your hand while forming a circle with your index finger and thumb, using those two fingers to hold the wrapper edges of the dumpling upwards. Continue adding filling into the "cup" you have formed until the filling reaches the top. Tap it down with a butter knife or spoon. Then place the dumpling down onto a sheet of parchment on a plate to prevent sticking, when you place it on the flat surface, push the dumpling down a little so that the bottom of the dumpling flattens to stand up straight.
3. Once all the dumplings are made, add your dumpling topping (minced carrots or fish roe. Optional: add a single green pea on top, in the center of your carrots or fish roe.)
4. At this point you can put the siu mai into the freezer and freeze until hard--then you can place them all into a ziploc bag and take them out to freeze whenever you feel like eating siu mai! Or, you can steam them freshly made. Whether you are steaming them fresh or from frozen, they only take about 12-13 minutes to steam.
5. If you don't have a steamer, you can put a rack into a pot of water and place the siu mai on a plate on top of the rack. Steam for 12-13 minutes, allow to cool for about 1-2 minutes and then enjoy!

Until next time,
​Jenny

So I haven't posted in foreverrrrrr to this blog because a LOT has happened in the past year, other than the COVID19 pandemic, of course. Earlier this year we moved to Illinois because my hubby got a new job and everything changed after that. We quit our jobs, he started his new job, we sold our house in New Jersey, bought a new house in Illinois and moved over here within the span of a couple months. Looking back on it now, I don't even know how we managed such a feat, but it certainly helped that his new company paid for all of the expenses and moving company. It's crazy how much stuff we'd accumulated over the short span of a few years, and so I got rid of a TON of stuff and still managed to move with a giant truckload! We've been living in Illinois since May now, and I have just started to get back into the groove of things, in terms of doing things that I wanted to do, for myself.

Since moving out here, we realized our town does not have many good Asian food options, and we did try some of the offerings around, though none of it memorable. I craved all the things we usually had easy access to in NJ and NYC, and being out here all alone really made me miss real, authentic foods from my culture. If we wanted anything remotely good, we'd have to drive about 2 hours to Chicago to find something. There is a town about an hour from us with slightly more authentic Chinese food, but it's still just so-so. So now, I end up making a lot of the foods we crave. Within the first 2 months or so, I made hundreds and hundreds of assorted dumplings and wontons, one of our favorite foods, which brings me to today's recipe post!

Wontons (雲吞) are a favorite in our family and a type of dumpling that I have fond memories of. These dumplings are a favorite of my father's and his favorite were from a very specific no frills restaurant that he would frequent in Hong Kong that served up "Ping Pong ball sized" wontons filled to the brim with fresh shrimp mixed with a touch of pork and served in a delicious clear broth. Cheap, fast, and delicious was the name of the game when it came to food in Hong Kong--especially street food or casual food. Nowadays, we always reminisce about how delicious the ping pong ball wontons were from Hong Kong whenever we have wontons or make them at home!

Traditional wontons are dumplings that are typically filled with pork, shrimp, or a combination of both. In Hong Kong and China, wonton soup often includes 大地鱼 or bian yu, also known as dried sole or flounder that adds a real hit of umami when the wontons are submerged in it. Some dried flounder powder is sometimes added to the wonton filling as well. It's been pretty hard to find this dried flounder powder in the USA, but with some online googling, I'm sure you can find it if you truly want an authentic wonton experience. For this recipe, we don't use dried flounder powder, but it still tastes great and goes wonderfully with noodle soup or on its own.

In my recipe, we use shrimp and pork, some Chinese staple seasonings and sauces, and ginger. The trick to a shrimp-ilicious wonton is to mix  a combination of chopped chunk shrimp and pounded shrimp paste with some ground pork. ​

Once your filling is ready, you'll spoon some onto some thin wonton wrappers which you can find at most Asian markets, and now increasingly can be found in the refrigerated sections of non-Asian supermarkets. I usually find them where they keep their tofu selections, which is also where they keep egg roll wrappers if you need to find some! I like to fold my wontons in half, then bring the ends together to "hug" the wonton.

I love to wrap a whole bunch of wontons and dumplings in one sitting so that I can store them in the freezer. After you are done wrapping them, place each finished dumplings onto a flat pan lined with parchment paper. After they are frozen, you can throw them into a freezer gallon bag to save space in the freezer.

According to my grandmother who hails from Taishan, China, Dong Zhi, or the Winter Solstice Festival, is one of the biggest holidays in China, similar to how westerners celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving. It's not the same exact date every year, but always falls around the same time according to the Lunar solar calendar.

"Dong Zhi is bigger than the New Year" she says. Why? Because after Dong Zhi, the days are longer with more sunlight, and the flow of positive energy returns after the short, dark days of winter--Dong Zhi is also a time of year where the family gathers together and eats a very specific dish, Tong Yuan, glutinous rice balls, which symbolizes the idea of "reunion." The characters for Tong Yuan in Chinese also sounds like the phrase Tuen Yuen 團圓, which means "reunion."

​My grandmother never measures her ingredients, but here is an approximation of her recipe 😊

INGREDIENTS
• Glutinous rice flour (1/2 bag) + cold water
• Pork rib meat (or chicken thigh meat)
• Cabbage (1/2 head)
• Daikon (1/2 head)
• Dried Shrimp (1/4 cup)
• Dried Shiitake Mushroom (15 pieces) - rehydrated
• Dried baby scallops (1/2 cup)
• 2 Chinese sausages (cut into 1/2 pieces)
• Chicken bouillon powder (or salt) to taste
• 5 cups water

DOUGH:
To create the tong yuan dough, add cold water a little by little and knead until the dough forms and is no longer sticky. Then, pull out a small amount of dough and roll into small balls, about 1/2 inch in size. They'll grow to be about 1-1.5 inches round when boiled in the soup.

SOUP:
1. First, boil a pot of water and blanch the meat for about 10 seconds. Then, rinse the chicken or pork meat under cold water and drain the blanch water. Start a new pot of water and start cooking the meat, shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, dried scallops and cabbage in the boiling water. Skim and remove foam and debris from the top of the soup as it cooks. Add the daikon radish last before adding the glutinous rice dumplings and cook until transparent.
​
2. As the soup is cooking, roll out the dumpling balls and place into the soup to cook. Once the balls become a little translucent and begin to float, it's ready to eat!

Some other renditions of tong yuan can be sweet and filled with sweet sesame or peanut paste, or the tong yuan can be filled with ground meat and shrimp. This is up to the traditions of each family, but we usually have it savory in our house.

Now that my grandmother has shared her recipe, I look forward to making it and passing this part of my culture and tradition down through my own family in the future too 😊 May you enjoy a warm family reunion for the Winter Solstice!

Dumplings are one of my absolute favorite foods—EVER. That along with noodles of course. Dumplings hold a special place in my heart and are rooted in my memories, mainly with family. To me, dumplings symbolize little pockets of fond memories, pockets of happiness. They are tiny wrapped bundles of joy gifted from maker to taster. Growing up, my grandmother would make a variety of dumplings and buns from scratch and I would always watch in awe as she kneaded flour into dough, dough into skins, and then wrapping those skins around tasty fillings of meats and vegetables.

I love any kind of dumpling, but I'll be sharing with you today a healthier option that you can make with your family! Made with vegetable dumpling skins, sole fillets, ginger and scallion, the flavors are light and reminiscent of ginger/scallion steamed fish dishes I grew up with that my family made and that we also enjoyed in Chinese restaurants. It'll be hard to stop eating them, and you won't need to feel guilty about it either because they're so healthy! Plus the dumplings are green because of the veggie wrappers, so it's practically like eating a salad with fish! Hahaha...yeah didn't sound as funny as I hoped it would...Anyhow...

INGREDIENTS:
1.5 pounds gray sole fillets (flounder, swai, basa fillets also work)
1 pack green vegetable dumpling wrappers
3/4 cup sweet corn kernels (cooked)
3 tbsp water
2.5 tbsp corn starch
3 tsp light soy sauce
1.5 tsp white pepper powder
1 egg
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tsp ground ginger powder
3 scallion stalks (minced finely)

DIPPING SAUCE:
2 scallion stalks (minced finely)
2 tbsp ginger (grated finely)
3 tsp cooking oil
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar

DIRECTIONS:
1. Dice up your fish fillets into small pieces, and chop scallions finely. In a large bowl, add fish, scallions, egg, soy sauce, white pepper powder, and corn starch and sesame oil. Slowly add water, and mix until well incorporated.

​​2. Once the filling is done, get your dumpling wrappers out. Lightly wet the edge of your wrapper with water and place 1 tbsp of fish filling in the center of your wrapper. Then, you'll want to fold the wrapper in half to enclose the filling. Press the edge with your fingers so that it's sealed tightly. Click here to see how you can fold dumplings in 5 different ways!​

​3. Cook the dumplings by boiling them or steaming them, about 7 minutes. You'll know it's cooked if it's floating in the water at the top and completely opaque (not translucent). The white meat of the fish will also be opaque and easy to fork apart.

4. While the dumplings are cooking, make your dipping sauce! Cook the cooking oil until it's hot and then add the grated ginger and scallion. If you like spicy, add in some sliced red chili peppers as well for that extra kick. Once fragrant, put the mixture into a bowl and add soy sauce and sugar, mix. You can also ladle hot seafood broth, chicken soup, or dashi soup over the dumplings before serving. Here, I used store bought dashi soup base. And that's it!

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do! Because I like spicy food, I tend to add the red chili pepper and red chili oil into my dipping sauce too 😁 Enjoy as is, or add it to a meal of noodles, which also represent longevity in Chinese culture!