Katori
A katori is the small bowl used across Indian households to serve dal, curry, curd and vegetables; a standard one holds roughly 150 ml, though real ones range from about 100 to 250 ml.
The katori is the unit Indian food is actually served in, and it is the single most useful household measure for logging an Indian meal. It is also not standardised, which is the whole problem and the whole solution.
Why the variation matters
Dietary guidance in India commonly assumes a katori of about 150 ml. Steel katoris sold in shops run from roughly 100 ml to 250 ml, and the deep ones in many homes hold more than that. A dal logged as "one katori" can therefore be off by more than half, in either direction.
Calibrating yours
Fill your usual katori with water and pour it into a measuring cup. That is your katori, in millilitres, permanently. If it holds 200 ml and the reference figure is per 150 ml, multiply by 1.33 and stop thinking about it.
For thicker preparations, weigh instead: fill the katori as you normally would with dal, put it on a scale, and note the grams. Once.
Why this beats switching to grams
Because you will keep using the katori at dinner either way. Calibrating the unit you already use costs twenty minutes once; converting every meal into grams costs two minutes a day forever, and that is the cost people stop paying.
Sources
- 1.Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 — ICMR–National Institute of Nutrition
- 2.ICMR–National Institute of Nutrition — Indian Council of Medical Research
Related reading
- How to track calories without a food scale
A calibration method that turns your own bowls, spoons and rotis into reliable units, so you can log a meal in seconds without weighing anything at the table.
- Calories in a katori of dal: nine dals compared
Toor, moong, masoor, chana, urad and the rest, per katori, with the tempering counted. The lentils barely differ; the oil and cream decide everything.
- How to count calories in home-cooked food
Home cooking has no barcode and no single right answer. The pot method, the oil problem, household servings, and reusable numbers for the food you eat.
- How to calculate the calories in a recipe you cooked
A worked example from a real pot of dal: count the raw ingredients, add the fat, divide by real servings, save the number. Fifteen minutes once per recipe.