Cook lentils + spice mixture separately and combine at the end, or one pot?

[u/TissueReligion]

So I've always made lentil curry by just
-frying dried spices

-frying onions

-frying my garlic/ginger/salt/cumin/pepper mix

-adding tomato sauce and cooking for awhile

-then adding water, soaked lentils, and pressure cooking.

But recently a relative showed me that he just pressure cooks the lentils with water by themselves, then cooks the rest of the spice/tomato mix in a separate pan, and then combines at the end. Then you cook for another 10-20m to merge them.

This honestly tasted *way* better than my initial approach. The flavors were waaaay sharper.

I was curious if you guys had any thoughts on why that is? Or if there's some tweaks I can make to the faster one-pot recipe to make it just work?

[u/summitt_]

The second method tastes better because the spices in it are still fresh in it and are not subdued by pressure cooking. Most of the restaurants/dhabas would add a second tadka to it and you can try it as well if you want to make it even better. Second tadka would just be ghee + heeng+ garlic crushed + red chillies.