Shaomai Steamed Dumplings 烧麦
Shaomai Steamed Dumplings is featured among the local specialties of Hubei.
Shaomai Steamed Dumplings (烧麦) are the steamed dumplings that Hubei (湖北) people, including those around Wuhan (武汉), usually call shaomei (烧梅). The Hubei version is filled with glutinous rice, diced meat and shiitake mushrooms.
Ingredients
Chinese Wikipedia describes Hubei shaomei as bigger and softer than shaomai elsewhere, with a flavour marked by plenty of oil and pepper. It also notes that in northern China, where shaomai originated, the filling is mainly meat, and that glutinous rice became the main ingredient after the dumpling spread south.
Where it comes from
One explanation of the Hubei name is that the wrapper is rolled out with a zouchui (走槌) rolling pin into an edge shaped like a plum blossom (梅花), so that the steamed dumplings look like opening plum flowers. Another view holds that shaomei, shaomai and shaomai's other spellings are simply different characters used for the same borrowed sound.
The earliest record of shaomai that Chinese Wikipedia cites is Pak Tongsa (朴通事), a Korean book of the Yuan period describing the capital Dadu (大都), which mentions shaomai (稍麦) in a noodle soup and with a vegetarian sour filling.
In December 2019 the Hubei Department of Commerce named shaomei wrapped in a fried dough cake (油饼包烧梅) among the province's ten signature snacks, alongside Cai Lin Ji hot dry noodles (蔡林记热干面) and Si Ji Mei soup dumplings (四季美汤包).
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Wuhan savoury rice-batter rings 武汉面窝 →
Another Wuhan snack, but deep-fried from a batter, where Hubei shaomei are steamed wrappers around glutinous rice, diced meat and shiitake.