Recipe: Creamy comfort-food pumpkin soup with crispy bacon

Berlin (dpa) – A hollow sound when you knock on a pumpkin tells you it's ripe and ready to eat. Another sign to look for is a stem that is dry, woody and brownish, with no liquid seeping out when pressed. Once you've checked your pumpkin is ripe and ready, it's time to make perhaps the heartiest thing you can use it for: a creamy soup. The Hokkaido variety is particularly handy since it does not need to be peeled (the thin skin softens during cooking). Pumpkin soup with bac on and pumpkin seed pesto Ingredients: 600 g Hokkaido pumpkin 300 g swede 200 g potatoes 2 onions 2 cloves of garlic 8 g ginger 2 bay leaves olive oil sea salt 200 ml dry white wine 1 bunch parsley 1 tbsp pumpkin seed paste 2 tbsp lemon juice 3 tbsp Parmesan 150 ml cloudy apple juice 1 tbsp honey 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 4 slices bacon 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds Method: Wash and dry the pumpkin, remove stalk and seeds, then roughly dice. Peel and roughly dice the swede, potatoes, onions, garlic and ginger. Sauté the onions, ginger and half the garlic with the bay leaves in 4 tbsp olive oil in a large pot until golden brown. Add the diced pumpkin, swede and potatoes and continue to sauté all over for about 8 minutes. Add 1 tsp salt, deglaze with white wine and pour in about 600 ml water. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently with the lid on for about 25 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Meanwhile make the pumpkin seed pesto: wash and shake dry the parsley, pick off the leaves and blend finely with the remaining garlic, 100 ml olive oil, pumpkin seed paste, 1/2 tsp salt, lemon juice and Parmesan. Remove the bay leaves from the soup. Blend the soup finely with 150 ml apple juice and season with salt, honey, cayenne pepper and a little lemon juice. Add a little more liquid if needed. Fry the bacon in a pan without oil until crisp. Divide the pumpkin soup among bowls and serve with pumpkin seed pesto, pumpkin seeds and bacon. The following information is not intended for publication dpa/tmn cwg yyzz n1 av coh

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