Xinning Duck in Blood Sauce 新宁血酱鸭
Xinning Duck in Blood Sauce is featured among the local specialties of Hunan.
Xinning Duck in Blood Sauce (新宁血酱鸭) is a stir-fry of young duck and duck blood, a traditional dish of Xinning County (新宁县) in Shaoyang (邵阳), southwest Hunan. Xinning is the county of Langshan (崀山), a World Natural Heritage site.
How it is made
In the version Xinning cooks take most care over, the duck is raised from after the spring sowing until just before the Dragon Boat Festival, when its wing feathers have just grown in. A tender bird of a little over two jin (about 1 kg) is thought best. Fresh Sichuan pepper goes in, and the duck is stir-fried together with fresh aubergine. A Xinning county report from 2015 singles out its distinctive seasonings and carefully judged heat, and calls the taste very savoury.
Where it comes from
Rednet, Hunan's official news portal, cites the Xinning county gazetteer for its origin story. In the Warring States period a Chu crown prince on a tour of inspection came to the area. The local official's cook, unsure what to make, worked with local ingredients and knocked over the bowl of duck blood in the middle of stir-frying. Flustered, he made the best of the mistake and kept stir-frying; the prince praised the result, and the dish was handed down.
In 2015 the Xinning county government held a selection of famous Langshan dishes and snacks, so that visitors to Langshan could also taste local food; by 12 April it had collected more than 200 local dishes. Over the May Day holiday that year, CCTV-4's programme Zoubian Zhongguo (走遍中国) filmed the whole process in Xinning, from choosing the duck to cutting, seasoning and frying it, together with the county's pot-soot pig's liver (锅灰猪肝).
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.