Mackerel para is a marinated fish pickle from Goa, India. It's a traditional side dish pickle cured for weeks, cooked briefly, and served with cooked rice and masoor dal.
A few days before you make the marination prepare the dried fish by cutting of the head and tails and take out the innards. Keep the dried fish for 2-3 days in the hot sun to dry a bit further.
A few days later, just before you intend to blend the marination, twist the stem off the dried red chili and discard the stem.
Wash your chili in 2 cup of vinegar before adding them into a mixing bowl with all the other spices and all the remaining vinegar, which include, garlic, ginger, peppercorn, cloves, cinnamon stick and brown mustard seeds. Leave to soak for 2-3 hours.
Wash the dried mackerels in the 2 cups of Vinegar which you used previously to wash the chilis, so to get rid of any impurities. Discard the 2 cups of vinegar once finished.
Place 12 fish in each of the 2 glass jars. Keep aside.
After soaking the spices, mix the whole content and place a batch first into a blender jar with some of the vinegar.
Blend to a smooth paste. You will have to add more vinegar while it blends to a smooth paste and once you are done with one batch blend the remaining spices to a smooth paste. You will require all the remaining vinegar for this.
Add all the paste into a cooking pot and keep over slow to medium heat.
Allow it to bubble and stir frequently, then take it from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes before filling your fish jars with the paste. Fill the glass jars until the fish is covered completely to the glass border.
Store in a dark, dry and cool place and only use after 1 month, when the fish is well marinated. I like to leave it untouched for 2 months before I attack it.
Cook the para fish
You can fry the fish once it's marinated. To do so add 2-3 Tablespoons of cooking oil to a frying pan and heat up. Once the oil is hot, take 1-2 fish per serving carefully out with a spoon and place into the hot pan. Fry first on one side for 2 minutes and then on the other side for another 2 minutes. Some oil always jumps out so you might want to cover the pan while it's frying so to save you some cleaning time.