上海烧卖 – Shanghai ShaoMai, step by step
UPDATE 3/17/2021: Find a reworked, updated recipe in My Shanghai cookbook!!!
I’m leaving the text from my post in 2014 up, but to find the updated recipe, please refer to my book, My Shanghai
上海烧卖 is Shanghainese shaomai, or more commonly known as pork shumai, is a very common breakfast street food you can find in Shanghai, China. It’s different from the ubiquitous dimsum shumai, which is made with pork and shrimp. Shanghai shaomai is filled with sticky rice and pork and very specific to its region (Jiang Su area). I learned this from my mother, who was born in Shanghai, and I grew up munching on these.
warning: very very photo heavy!! Be prepared for tons of step by step photos. I sort of went nuts.
These are the basic ingredients: sweet glutinous rice, scallions, ground pork, shaomai skins, fresh ginger, soy sauce, shaoxing wine, and sugar (not pictured). Seems quite simple, no?
The first step is to soak the sweet glutinous rice overnight in cold water. The rice should be completely covered by 1″ of water. I do this right before I go to bed, so that I can make it the next day when I wake up. Line a steamer with cheesecloth and spread the rice evenly over it. Steam until fully cooked, about 15-20 minutes. The rice should be more translucent and soft. Set aside and cover with a damp cloth to prevent drying out. Heat up a wok. When wok is steaming, add some cooking oil. Add ground pork and cook until browned. Add soy sauce and stir. Then add cooking wine and sugar. Cook for another 1-2 minutes. Add water to just above meat level. Add in ginger. You can do a taste test – it should be a bit salty. If not, add 1 more tbsp of soy sauce. Add in sweet rice and sauce until liquid has all been absorbed. Remove from heat and fold in scallions. Spread onto a parchment lined baking sheet or a shallow pan and let it cool to room temperature.
And now it’s time for the wrapping process. Place about 1 tbsp of rice filling onto a shaomai skin in the palm of your hand.
Begin to loosely pleat the edges.
Once you’ve gone around the circumference, hold the pleats together and twist down. Press it as if you were tying a plastic bag.
You will end up with a little upside down mushroom, or a little pouch of rice. 
Unwrap the pouch and stuff in another 1 tbsp of rice filling.
And you have your shaomai. You want to make sure that it is stuffed tightly, otherwise it might fall apart when you are steaming. Use your thumb and fingers to really stuff the rice in, nice and compact.
Now you can steam them. 
RECIPE: 上海烧卖 – Shanghai ShaoMai – find a reworked, updated recipe in My Shanghai cookbook.
OH EM GEEEEE THAT GIF THOUGH!
RIGHT?!!!! I love gifs!!!
How interesting! The “siew mais” i’ve had in singapore is usually with yellow skin and filled with pork or chicken. Your version seems so tasty! Not confident on making the sticky rice though.
I know exactly what you’re talking about! I usually see those in dim sum, and I think they’re the more commonly known version of shao mai (or shu mai or siew mai!!). I grew up with these, though, so I’m definitely biased :P.
Superbes photos. Cant wait to try it as well
Thank you!!
LOVE this post. Great photos and I’m so feeling the gif. This rice looks so amazing. Awesome.
Aww thank you amanda!!!
beautiful, beautiful food and photos! a fantastic blog, I’m so glad I found it!
Thanks Natasha!! Welcome 🙂
Just found your blog and adoreeee it. My grandmother is from Shanghai and I grew up in Brazil and now live in California. I miss a lot of the Chinese food we had growing up and am just now starting to find out the proper names for everything. Bought some glutinous rice to make Shanghainese style zongzi so I want to try these out!
Hi!! Thank you so much for dropping by!! Wow Brazil – must’ve been amazing. There are definitely a LOT of Chinese food options in California – that’s where I grew up! And omg YES ZHONG ZI. My other favorite thing in the WORLD!!!!! I’m actually working on a post (also from my mother, of course!) – I’d love to hear what you think of it – if it’s similar to what your grandma made.
For so long I could only find Taiwanese and Cantonese style zongzi here that had shrimp and egg yolks and wasn’t the one i grew up with…Can’t wait to see your
post!
This is amazing. My mom asked me to search up how to make 烧卖 and many websites I found were Chinese… I may be Chinese but I suck at reading characters so it was a relief to find this website. I have always eaten 烧卖 but it was always store bought. Now we can make our own. Thx soooo much!!!
Thank you for this awesome article.
keep it |