← Nouns Cooking · Japanese

Ingredients

• 150 g Onion, very finely chopped
• 2½ tbsp potato starch or cornflour
• 350 g Minced pork
• 1 tsp Ginger, grated, with its juice
• 3 dried shiitake, soaked and finely chopped (optional)
• 1 tbsp Sake
• 1 tbsp Soy sauce
• 2 tsp Toasted sesame oil
• 2 tsp Sugar
• ½ tsp Salt
• 1 pinch White pepper
• 28 square shumai or wonton wrappers
• 28 frozen green peas
• 4 cabbage or lettuce leaves, to line the steamer
• soy sauce, vinegar and hot mustard, to serve

Method

1. Toss the chopped onion with the starch in a bowl until coated. This holds its juice inside the dumplings.
2. In another bowl, mix the pork, ginger, shiitake, sake, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, salt and pepper by hand for 1–2 min until sticky. Add the onion and mix again.
3. Make an O with your thumb and index finger, lay a wrapper over it and drop in a heaped teaspoon of filling. Push it down gently while squeezing the sides so the wrapper wraps around it, leaving the top open. Flatten the top and bottom, then press a pea into the centre.
4. Line a steamer with cabbage leaves and arrange the shumai with a little space between them.
5. Steam over boiling water for 10–12 min until the filling is firm and cooked through (pork to at least 71°C / 160°F).
6. Serve hot with soy sauce, a splash of vinegar and hot mustard.

Tips

• No steamer? Set the shumai in a frying pan, add 100 ml water, cover and steam over medium heat for 8–10 min.
• They freeze well uncooked; steam straight from frozen for 15 min. Contains wheat and soy.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Just One Cookbook Japanese Cooking 101 RecipeTin Japan