Hunan chicken

Hunan chicken is a popular dish at local restaurant and home-cooked meal of Hunan province in China. This region is known for their use of chili peppers and tart flavors. Hunan sauce used for the dish is made of garlic, ginger, chili paste and an oyster and soy sauce based sauce.

Hunan cuisine, also known as Xiang cuisine, consists of the cuisines of the Xiang River region, Dongting Lake and western Hunan Province in China. It is one of the Eight Great Traditions of Chinese cuisine and is well known for its hot and spicy flavours, fresh aroma and deep colours. Common cooking techniques include stewing, frying, pot-roasting, braising and smoking.

In comparison with many other dishes from the Hunan province of China, Hunan chicken dish with mixed vegetables is rather sweet, savory, less spicy, especially the variants prepared takeout restaurants outside China.

The most famous dishes of Hunan are the original Dong'an chicken, "Dry-wok" chicken, and Mala chicken from Hunan cuisine, flavoured with chili peppers. 

There are many versions of this so called Hunan chicken dish now, sold by those restaurants and claimed to be original Hunan chicken. Actuelly the varieties to cook chicken with chilli peppers in Hunan are not quite widely. Some of Hunan style look like chicken dishes of Sichuan style but the taste is basically not the same.