Hunan Cuisine

Hunan cuisine, sometimes called Xiang cuisine (湖南菜 or 湘菜;), is generally considered in China as one of the eight main cooking styles. Hunan dishes consist of local dishes from the Xiangjiang River area, Dongting Lake area and Western Hunan mountain area.

What is Hunan cuisine famous for?

The cuisine gives priority to abundance, fatness, smoothness and moistness, mostly take chili as the main course. It not only has the saltiness of the North and the sweetness of the South, but also the hotness and sourness of local characteristics.

It is characterized by fragrance, tenderness, clearness and crispness. Its selected materials are based on the principle of being fresh and cheap but good. The cuisine is especially particular about the tastiness of raw materials.

Hunan cuisine has varied cooking techniques such as sautéing, stir-frying, steaming and smoking. It is especially good at "stewing" dishes. However, it is most skillful in braising and baking, by which dishes of original flavor can be cooked.

Hunan cuisine is also famous for its excellence in cutting techniques, appearance and flavor. The dishes are changeable with all shapes. The special seasonings of the cuisine include soy sauce, tea seed oil, spicy oil, Chinese red pepper, fennel and cassia bark, which add color to the cuisine, which is noted for pungency. The Hunan chili is especially spicy, and local people have a preference for chili which they put in almost everything they eat.

Hunan is known as "the land of fish and rice". Like the west in latitude, it has the added bonus of lowlands for rice cultivation and a rich ocean's edge for fish. So rice and seafood is common in Hunan cuisine.

What are the features of Hunan cuisine?

Chili, pepper and shallot are usually necessaries in Hunan cuisine. The characteristic of Hunan cooking is the liberal use of chillis, which gives it thick and pungent flavor. Hunan cuisine is known for being dry hot or purely hot. Hunan cuisine is often spicier and contains a larger variety of ingredients. Chili, peppers, garlic and an unusual sauce, called "strange-flavor" sauce on some menus, enliven many dishes, with a somewhat drier intensity than that

of their Sichuan counterparts.Sweetness, too, is a Hunan culinary passion, and honey sauces are favored in desserts such as water chestnut or cassia flower cakes.

Representative dishes:
Beer duck (啤酒鸭 )
Changsha-style rice vermicelli (长沙米粉)
Changsha-style stinky tofu (长沙臭豆腐)
Dong'an chicken (东安子鸡)
"Dry-wok" chicken (干锅鸡)
Home-style bean curd (家常豆腐)
Lotus seeds in rock sugar syrup (冰糖湘莲)
Mao's braised pork (毛氏红烧肉)
Numbing-and-hot chicken (麻辣子鸡)
Smoky flavours steamed together (腊味合蒸)
Steamed fish heads in chili sauce (剁椒蒸鱼头)
Stir-fried duck blood (炒血鸭)
Stir-fried meat with douchi and chilli peppers (豆豉辣椒炒肉)
Pearly meatballs (珍珠肉丸)

Well-known Snacks:
Pumpkin cake
Fermented Bean Curd
Sisters‘ Glutinous Rice Balls
Xiangtan Roll
Hengyang Pailou Tangyuan (stuffed balls made of glutinous rice flour served in soup)
Shrimp Cake

The history of the cooking skills employed in the Hunan cuisine date back many centuries. As early as the Western Han Dynasty, 2,100 years ago, the cooking skills of Hunan cuisine reached a high standard. During the course of its history, Hunan cuisine assimilated a variety of cuisine styles, and then developed its own style. Now it contains more than 4,000 dishes, among