10 Ingredient Vegan Siomai

1. Take the dried mushrooms and the 1 cup water and simmer the mushrooms for 20 minutes in a fully covered, small saucepan.
2. While mushrooms are simmering, rinse off your green onions and slice into thin discs all the way to the bottom. Discard the bottom.
3. Gather all of your other ingredients for the filling.
4. When mushrooms are done, use tongs to pick out the mushrooms and mince. Do not discard the water.
5. Preheat a skillet to medium heat. When hot enough, add the minced mushrooms, mushroom broth, frozen vegan ground beef, vegetable oil, half of the green onions, soy sauce, cornstarch and msg and cook for 3-5 minutes until everything is mixed together and barely cooked. Just don’t overcook because this stuff isn’t real meat and it will be steamed again once in the siomai.
6. Let sit for 5 minutes in a large, glass bowl after cooking and do the next step while it cools down.
7. Bring plated wonton wrappers to the table with a damp towel over it so they don’t dry out.
8. Bring a small bowl of water to the table to dip fingers in while assembling.
9. Bring out two bamboo trays and set them on the table.
10. Take out six fresh lettuce or cabbage leaves, rinse and pat dry.
11. Line each bamboo tray with three leaves each. Make them as flat as possible even if it means having to tear some of the ribs off. Just try to cover the bottom of the tray.
12. Go back to the filling and use your hands to mash it together so it’s not as crumbly. This is to ensure that it doesn’t get too crumbly as a filling.

Start assembling in the order below:

1. While keeping the damp towel over the unused wonton wrappers, take a wonton wrapper and use your finger to wet the perimeter of the surface.
2. Take your 1 tablespoon cookie scoop and get a heaping scoop of the filling and place in the middle of the wrapper, carefully as to not spread too much.
3. Start pinching the sides together to make a wall for the filling.
4. Using a flexing palm to form the dumpling into somewhat of a cup shape, gently push filling down to make it as dense and compact as possible. This is so that it doesn’t fall out of the dumpling.
5. When the filling is compact and dense, tighten up all the sides with more pinching and feel free to push upper edges over the top so that it helps keep the filling pushed down and dense. Add water when needed to get pinched sides to stick together.
6. Set the dumpling/siomai in the steamer tray.
7. Repeat steps 1-5 until all dumplings have been made. Make sure to not have the dumplings touching each other.

Cooking the siomai:

1. Put about an inch of water in a sauté  pan that can hold up the steamers.
2. Layer the bamboo steamers and cover with lid. Set on top of the sauté pan’s rim and steam for 10 minutes or until done.
3. When done, top with green onions and serve with your favorite soy sauce, chili oil, or your favorite vinegar dipping sauce!