Make fresh and tasty Shumai at home with ground pork, onion, ginger, and shiitake mushrooms! These delicious dumplings are perfect for a party appetizer or a weeknight meal!
Yokohama Chinatown (横浜中華街, Yokohama Chūkagai) is Japan’s largest Chinatown located in my hometown Yokohama. Among shops and restaurants in Chinatown, Kiyoken (崎陽軒) is the most famous shop which started its business in 1908. Their Shumai (steamed pork dumplings) has been a popular and well-known Yokohama souvenir for decades.
Japanese-style Shumai
Shumai (シュウマイ) in Japan has mostly pork as the main ingredient compared to the Chinese Shaomai or Siumai (燒賣) which uses both ground pork and chopped shrimp.
Shumai always has a green pea in the middle. Unlike the original Chinese siumai, the texture of the Shumai filling is soft as the pork filling includes onion and mushrooms.
You can get wonton wrappers if you can’t find shumai wrappers. Japanese grocery stores sell one that says “Shumai/Wonton wrappers“.
When I make spring rolls or shumai at home, I always make cheese wrap with the leftover skins. Both pan-fried and deep-fried cheese wraps are really easy to make and your leftover skins won’t go to waste!
Even though Shumai might look difficult or tedious to make, it’s actually not so bad. It could be fun to make these with your children or friends and eat right away after they are steamed. Enjoy!
Japanese Ingredient Substitution: If you want to look for substitutes for Japanese condiments and ingredients, click here.
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Make fresh and tasty Shumai at home with ground pork, onion, ginger, and shiitake mushrooms! These delicious dumplings are perfect for a party appetizer or a weeknight meal!
- 1 lb ground pork
- ½ onion
- 1 inch ginger (use about ½ Tbsp)
- 3 green onions/scallions
- 2 shiitake mushrooms
- 1 package shumai wrapper (or use wonton wrappers)
- Green peas
- 2 Tbsp sake
- ½ Tbsp sesame oil (roasted)
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- ½ tsp kosher/sea salt (use half for table salt)
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Soy Sauce
- Rice Vinegar
- La-yu (Japanese chili oil) (optional)
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Gather all the ingredients.
- Mince onion, shiitake mushrooms, green onions and grate ginger (keep the juice).
- In a large bowl, combine the meat, Seasonings, and ginger with juice, and mix.
- Add onion, shiitake mushroom, and green onions and mix well with hands until the mixture becomes sticky.
- Form one of your hand as if you are holding a tube. Put a sheet of shumai wrapper on top. Scoop 1 tsp of the mixture on top of the wonton and push it in. Fix the shape with hands and push in a green pea on top.
- Place the ones you finish on top of parchment paper (baking sheet or cabbage leaves) inside the steamer.
- When it’s almost done wrapping, boil water in the wok. Make sure the water will not touch the bamboo steamer.
- When you are done wrapping and water is boiling, put the steamer in the wok. Make sure you wrap the steamer lid with a thin towel (I used Japanese 'tenugui') so that condensation from the water vapor will not drop on Shumai. Cook for 8 minutes.
- If you have some leftover wrappers, you can make Wonton Cheese Wrap or make my fellow blogger friend MJ's Wonton Crackers. For Wonton Cheese Wrap, you put the cheese in the wrapper and use water to seal the two edges tightly and fry in the pan.
- While Shumai is hot, serve with Dipping Sauce (soy sauce + rice vinegar).
Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe in your own words and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
