Fragrant Lentil Rice Soup

 When Michelle decided to change from the Valentine's cake to this lentil recipe, I had mixed feelings. I always love to bake, and I usually make something chocolate for Valentine's day. On the other hand, the recipe in the Melissa Clark cookbook involved buttercream--the kind with egg whites and three sticks of butter. I had been scheming about how to wiggle around that (a scheme involving cupcakes) when the change was made. And now we have lentils and rice and spinach. What better way to show your love than to cook a really delicious and healthy meal?

So there I was on a Monday night, facing the stove with tears streaming down my face. Four onions is a lot to chop! Three of them went in a pan to caramelize.

 I then turned my attention to the "soup" pot (this ended up more like a pilaf), sautéing onions with aromatics like garlic, ginger (family favorite!), bay leaf, and cinnamon stick. I added these "coral lentils", as the French call them, and some stock and water and let the lot simmer. Note that I should have added the rice at this time, even though I used plain basmati rice rather than the brown basmati Melissa calls for.

In the meantime, the onions continued to caramelize. Although I followed the recipe fairly closely, adding a bit more oil and cranking up the heat, the onions never achieved the "crispy" stage. They were still deliciously caramelized. I've had more luck using the oven to get crispy onions, though they very quickly go from crispy to carbonized.

 In the meantime, as Melissa suggests, I had been making paratha dough, and when the lentils and rice seemed almost done, I cooked up some parathas.

Mmm...flaky, buttery flatbread. I'm sure the whole-wheat flour totally makes up for all the butter in these.

Now that the paratha is almost ready, it's time to add the spinach. I decided to leave out the mint because I wasn't feeling it. I'm curious to see if others used it.

And here's the finished product. The spinach freshens up the whole affair and keeps it from being exclusively brown food: unfortunately, red lentils lose some of their pretty color in cooking. The flavor is aromatic without being spicy: I didn't love the cinnamon flavor and might try to dial back on that (maybe adding some cardamom instead) another time. I liked the pilaf texture and loved the caramelized onion topping. As with the parsnip soup, a squeeze of lemon (no limes to be found right now) brightened and enhanced the flavor a lot. Everyone seemed to enjoy this dish, and it was the perfect amount for four people.

Cook this now? If you'd like something healthy, somewhat exotic, and not too complicated to put together, I would say yes!