Waxed duck at a store display
Waxed duck, otherwise known as lup ngap (Cantonese) or lak yak (Mandarin) is an oily, waxed meat. Lup and lak both mean "wax" in the respective dialects although the romanization is different. I had always thought it looked like plastic meat when I was younger and never really had a chance to eat it. It's a salty, preserved meat that needs to be cooked (i.e. steamed) before serving. The seller mentioned that it needed to be cooked before eating, but I was adamant at trying to eat it raw and didn't have much success:
It was simply too tough to bite off that way. The skin of the duck went through some unholy preservative measures that made it look waxy and rendered it all but impossible to tear off with the canines without softening it first. It retails for RM 4.50 per drumstick (including thigh area) and the price increases as the size of the fowl increases, up to RM 25.00 for a full bird (it's duck).
Anyway, the above is a photo I took at home while I prepared it for steaming. There isn't any fancy ingredients added - this is the unadulterated experience, just the duck and nothing else, thank you very much. ;) I covered the plate with another plate as instructed and then put it over some boiling water (no direct contact, steaming it) and after about 20 minutes, it turned into this:
It looks much more edible now, though the waxy looking exterior remains. It also seems quite oily as the photo shows. I ate most of it with kueh tiaw, though eating it with steamed rice would be a better choice to offset the salty taste. It's very salty, no doubt. It's also very tough but it was edible, if not palatable (at least to me) after the first few bites. The choking oiliness and "waxy" feeling of the duck makes the skin very hard to consume but nevertheless, I liked it for the novelty value and hey, these things only come around once a year. Happy Chinese New Year! :)
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