Experiment: Scallop ‘Shu Mai’ | Sybaritica

I was experimenting with a dim sum dumpling filling that would normally be more associated with a variety fried in wheat starch dough rather than steamed in the Basic Wheat Flour Dough I’ve used here. The filling in question is composed of chopped scallop and chives with some light seasoning but that is all I am going to say about it here because, quite honestly, it didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.

The reason I have featured this experiment today is the particular shape of the dumplings. While browsing recipes online I came across one for dumplings that were described as Shu Mai despite not having the usual ‘pleated purse’ shape. Possibly, purists might say these are not actually Shu Mai for that reason but they are ‘open-faced’, steamed, and use a flour wrapper so possible they still fit the general category.

Anyway, the end result is, I think, much prettier than the standard shape and is much more easily formed. One simply puts a dollop of the filling in the middle of a dough circle and then pinches each ‘corner’ causing the sides to come up around the middle. My readers might like to try it themselves with filling mixtures of their own creation or possibly with the more standard Shu Mai filling used in my Shu Mai with Pork and Shrimp…

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