Indian cooking measurements are uniquely mixed. A grandmother's recipe calls for one pav of atta. A modern recipe blog says 120 grams. A baking tutorial says one cup. These are not the same thing — and getting the conversion wrong changes the dish.
The BIS standard cup is 240 ml. One tablespoon = 15 ml. One teaspoon = 5 ml. One katori = 150 ml by common kitchen standard, though actual katori sizes vary from 100–200 ml. The pav = 233.28 grams (one quarter of a seer). The traditional seer = 933.1 grams. These are the anchors that resolve most Indian kitchen measurement questions.
Volume vs Weight — Why Both Matter
Volume and weight are not interchangeable for dry ingredients. One cup of water = 240 ml = 240 grams. But one cup of atta = 240 ml volume = only 120 grams in weight. One cup of uncooked rice = 200 grams. One cup of granulated sugar = 200 grams.
This density difference is why baking recipes specify grams, not cups — precision matters when leavening ratios are critical. For everyday cooking, cups and katori work fine. For commercial kitchen scaling, weight is essential for consistent results.
Traditional Indian Measures
The seer (also spelled ser) = 933.1 grams was the dominant weight unit in the subcontinent before metrication. Recipes from the mid-20th century use seer regularly. One maund = 40 seer = 37.324 kg. The pav = one quarter seer = 233.28 grams. The chattank = one sixteenth seer = 58.32 grams.
These units survive in family recipe books, traditional market transactions (particularly in UP, Bihar, and Rajasthan), and competitive exam questions about pre-metric Indian measurement systems.
FSSAI Labelling Standards
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) requires all packaged food nutritional labels to declare per 100 grams or per 100 ml. This is the metric standard for commercial food production. Home recipes in cups and katori still need gram conversion for label compliance when products are sold commercially.
Our cooking converters cover the full range: ml-to-cup, gram-per-cup for specific ingredients (atta, rice, sugar, oil), and traditional-to-metric (seer, pav, maund, chattank) for reading older recipes.