Marc Veyrat's Pumpkin Soup with Bacon-flavoured Whipped Cream

Description
Marc Veyrat is a famous French chef. This recipe is very simple, but has a lot of flavour through the whipped cream topping. It is so easy to prepare, that even beginners would succeed. In his restaurant it is served in small pumpkins. The French name of the recipe is "Soup de potiron, fleurette au gout de lard"



Ingredients

 * 750 g pumpkin flesh, in big chunks
 * 125 g smoked bacon, strips cut into large pieces
 * 1 tablespoon butter
 * 250 g cream
 * ½ liter milk
 * salt and pepper

Directions

 * 1) Heat 150g of cream with the bacon, bring to a boil and reduce to a thick liquid, strain, leave to cool and preserve in the fridge.
 * 2) Throw away the bacon strips.
 * 3) Melt the butter, add pumpkin pieces and cook for 3–4 minutes.
 * 4) Add the milk, salt and leave to cook (covered) for 30 minutes.
 * 5) Whip the remaining cream (very cold) rapidly until consistency of whipped cream.
 * 6) Incorporate the equally cold bacon cream.
 * 7) Keep the mixture in the fridge.
 * 8) After 30 minutes blend the pumpkin milk mixture.
 * 9) Adjust the seasoning by adding salt and maybe pepper.
 * 10) Serve this soup hot and top gently with a tbsp of bacon cream.