MUZIChinese Matrix
Dim Sum · FFET10161
Shaomai: an open-topped steamed dumpling in a thin wrapper, Cantonese style with pork and shrimp, and fillings that differ by region.
A small pale bamboo steamer lined in white paper holds four siu mai in thin, pleated pale-yellow skins, open over pink-gray pork and shrimp with orange-red crab roe dots, with wood chopsticks angled rightward on its back rim.
The small dishes served with tea in a tea house.
Shaomai is a steamed dumpling in a thin wrapper, gathered into pleats around a filling with the top left open. The Cantonese kind uses pork, shrimp and mushroom, topped with carrot or crab roe, and is a dim sum for the tea table; Hohhot uses lamb, and Jiangnan also has glutinous rice versions. The Yuan-period Korean primer Pu Tong Shi and the Ming novel Jin Ping Mei both mention it; these references are second-hand, the originals were not checked, and accounts of its origins differ.
Shaomai is a steamed dumpling in a thin wrapper, gathered into pleats around the filling with the top left open. The Cantonese kind uses pork and shrimp with mushroom and is topped with crab roe or carrot; shaomai in Hohhot has a lamb filling without glutinous rice; and Jiangnan versions use glutinous rice.1,2,4,5
The Yuan-period Korean primer Pu Tong Shi mentions “shao mai,” and the Ming novel Jin Ping Mei has peach-blossom shaomai. One of several accounts of the name, that it was sold on the side with tea, appears in a 1937 Suiyuan gazetteer. These references are second-hand: the first two originals were not checked, and the gazetteer citation lacks page numbers and could not be verified.1,2
Shaomai's origins remain unsettled. It is a regular dim sum of Cantonese morning tea; Jiangnan, Hubei, Fuzhou and Jiangxi have their own versions, and it is also found in places such as Japan and Australia.1,2
Place the filling on a thin wrapper, gather the edges into pleats with the top left open, and steam. The Cantonese method beats pork and shrimp into a sticky filling and tops each piece with carrot or crab roe. Both of the 2 home recipes specify steaming for 9 to 10 minutes.4,5
One interpretation of the name is a snack sold on the side with tea. It sits beside shrimp dumplings on the Cantonese morning-tea table: an official Guangzhou report from September 2026 lists shrimp dumplings and siu mai among the dim sum tasted at an event.2,3
In September 2026, the Guangzhou city government announced a list of traditional morning-tea shops, including 3 headquarters-level brands: Guangzhou Restaurant, Taotaoju and Diandude. The report does not identify whose siu mai was served.3
The tale goes that the snack was sold along with tea in tea houses, so it was called shaomai in the sense of sold on the side. Later it was written with the characters used today, and the sound stayed the same.
Told in: One account of the name, cited by both Chinese and English Wikipedia from a 1937 gazetteer of the Suiyuan area; the citation is incomplete and it could not be checked, and the entries settle nothing.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is Cantonese-style pork and shrimp siu mai, made at home with store-bought thin wrappers. It is not the lamb shaomai of Hohhot or the glutinous rice kind of Jiangnan. The amounts and timings below are my own choices at home, and the pork and shrimp must be steamed all the way through.
Allergens: wheat, shellfish, soy, sesame, egg
