Add 1 tbsp olive oil and onions.
Fry slowly until slightly burnt on the edges, about 15 min.
Set heat on lowest setting, wait for it to cool a bit. scrape up the onions a bit and leave space for the spices. Then ad the rest of the oil and the grounded spices into that space. let it sit and extract the flavors in the oil for about 5 min. check it so it does not burn.
Then ad all the rest but lentils and cook for about 30 min without a lid on low heat. Lastly ad the lentils and continue to cook for another 10 minutes without the lid on even lower heat. (Instead of precooked lentils can also dry lentils be used and added directly with the tomatoes, but then you need to ad the double amount of water for the lentils to cock in. (1 part dried lentils and 2 parts of water)