We took the smoked mackerel essence and blended it with an equal weight of herbs, split between blanched parsley and cilantro leaves. We thickened and emulsified the sauce with 0.15% xanthan gum and 0.5% gum arabic. We strained it and ended up with a vibrant and rich green sauce.
We took leaves of Napa cabbage and sliced them vertically through the stems. We put a spoonful of bacon fat in a cast-iron skillet and heated it in the wood-fired oven. When the skillet and fat were hot, we added the leaves and returned the skillet to the oven to let the leaves start to blister. When the curling edges had taken on a foxy brown hue, we removed the skillet from the oven.
We poured the leaves and bacon fat into a bowl and added the juice of a quarter of a Meyer lemon and a sprinkling of coarse salt to make a rough vinaigrette, tossing the cabbage to coat the leaves. We spooned the green sauce onto the plates and then arranged the Napa cabbage on top. We finished the warm salad with a spoonful of the remaining vinaigrette from the bowl. The leaves were barely tender, crisp, and surprisingly juicy, with a rich earthy flavor, brightened by the Meyer lemon, and accented with a combination of bacon and smoke.
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