noun
pl. shumai- A steamed or fried dumpling that contains a pastelike filling of minced ingredients, as pork, shrimp, ginger, and onion, usually seasoned with soy sauce and often only partially wrapped, exposing part of the filling.
- A dish consisting of a number of these dumplings.
Origin of shumai
Japanese shūmai from Cantonese siu1 maai6 Cantonese reading ( with siu1 to burn, roast ) ( and maai 2 ) ( variant in composition of maai 6 to sell ) of Mandarin shāomài ( as written with the characters shāo, to burn, roast ) ( and mài , to sell, since shumai are frequently sold in small shops and as street food ) rewriting of earlier shāomài shāo a little variant of shào ( from Middle Chinese &shookr;a&istroke;w` ) ( from Old Chinese sr(i)âuh ) mài wheat ( perhaps with reference to the thin wheaten wrapper, from Middle Chinese ma&tricolon;jk ) ( from Old Chinese mrək ) ( perhaps of Indo-European origin; see melə- in Indo-European roots.)