One time I went to this Afghani (Hazaragi) restaurant with friends in another city. Most of us were vegetarian, and they had heard this place had good vegetarian food, so that’s what we ordered.

There was this simple garlic dal that I still think about. It was so perfectly flavored and balanced and seasoned, with a depth of flavour that surprised the hell out of me. I suspect the vegetable stock they used was cooked long and slow for a very long time, but I’ll never know its secrets for sure.

Everything else we ordered was tasty enough, but this was next level. And it wasn’t just me, everyone at the table agreed. And it was just a bowl of lentils! It’s not like we hadn’t had dal before.

They’ve since changed chefs/owners. The closest sounding recipe I’ve found is this one from a thankfully decent UX site (ignore the coconut milk in the url, there is none) but using stock instead of water and probably much less ginger. I still mean to try this recipe but with more fried garlic… perhaps I have underestimated the masala.