One more Melissa Clark recipe: Fragrant Lentil and Rice Soup with Spinach and Crispy Onions

Tonight's recipe from Melissa Clark's book jumped out at us right away.  It sounded tasty, and plus, we had many of the ingredients and the others weren't hard to find.  It wasn't until I started making it tonight that I realized why it appealed so much: it's because it's almost exactly like one of our favorite recipes of all time - red lentil dal with charred onions.

Fragrant Lentil and Rice Soup with Spinach and Crispy Onions

It's the same aromatics, the same spices and almost the same ingredients, except MC calls for spinach whereas the traditional one calls for tomatoes.  And MC's soup has you cook the rice in with the lentils, instead of serving the dal atop the rice. I salute her for efficiency.  And as expected, it was extremely tasty and there's plenty leftover.