KARACHI: For those hooked on French fries, especially the ones sold out of kiosks, there is a new type of fries in town. And ‘Matka fries’ is the name.

The kiosk at Burns Road is run by two friends Mohammad Umair and Meher Ali. “We are childhood friends. We grew up in the same neighbourhood in Ranchore Line, went to the same school,” says Ali.

The black kiosk, with ‘Allah Tawakkal’ painted on it, is kept locked up the entire day. The friends come in the evening. “We spend the daytime in preparations for serving our customers. “We prepare everything at home whether it is mayonnaise, chutney and all the other spices sprinkled on the fries. We buy fresh potatoes and cream, etc, before heading here to open the shop at around 6.30pm. Once here, we work nonstop and we are only able to close after midnight because we are surrounded by customers,” beams Ali.

His friend Umair cuts in to take our order. He says that they offer three types of variations of the Matka fries: Chicken tandoori fries for Rs300, Pizza fries for Rs200 and Cheesy fries for Rs150. All the variations are prepared in small clay pots or Matka, hence the name Matka fries. They also have a smaller serving in little plastic trays for anyone who’d like a smaller portion, with the desired customisation.

Burns Road kiosk serves scrumptious and cheesy fries baked in clay pot

Umair says that they arrived at Burns Road to sell French fries some two months ago. “But we were not selling well and went into loss during our initial month. That’s when seeing me so tense and worried, my mother offered to help,” says Umair.

“My mother is from Delhi. She loves bitter-sweet delights and relying on her taste buds she prepared us special chutneys also special spice concoctions for us, too. We tried out new and different methods of serving potato chips then. The ones baked in an oven with cheese filled our palate and tasted great. My mother likes green chilli but I thought it would become too hot for many so we compromised. We used green capsicum instead,” he says.

He takes a small Matka, brushes its inside with oil. On the other hand, fries are being fried. When done, he puts some in the Matka along with chopped pieces of capsicum and asks if you would like your fries spicier or less before coating them with the masala.

This is followed by covering fries with a cheese slice, cream and mayonnaise, before adding more fries. All of this is then placed in a microwave oven, for a couple of minutes and right before taking the fries out, the Matka was covered with a piece of foil to complete the cooking in its juices.

Asked how they are managing to run the microwave, Ali smiles and points to a wire coming from a flat window upstairs in the building behind them. “We are sharing the electricity connection with some nice folks upstairs. They are also more than happy to help us since we are paying half of their electricity bills,” he says.

“And not just this microwave, we are also running this potato peeling machine on electricity,” he adds showing a metal pot with potatoes bouncing around inside. When asked if the peeler was also their invention like the Matka fries, the friends laugh and nod their heads. “No, this we got from Shershah market,” says Ali.

Umair then places our pot of fries before us along with two disposable plastic forks. “It’s ready,” he announces with pride. “Go ahead, dig in!”

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2022