Baked Vegetable Custard With Crispy Bacon

This recipe is from myswitzerland.com and has been posted here for play in ZWT - 7 World tour - Switzerland. The people of the Engadine did not want to have weddings without their traditional barley soup. They refined the soup and left out the barley and thus the Engadine wedding soup was created. Incidentally it also tastes delicious as a flan.

• Ready In: 1 hr 10 mins
• Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 150  ml  meat stock
• 100  g leeks, cut into very thin
• 100  g celery, diced into tiny cubes
• 50  g carrots, diced into tiny cubes
• 150  ml  double cream
• 3  fresh eggs
• 2  tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
• 1⁄4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
• 6  slices bacon (cooked crispy)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 170 c or (340 f).
2. Grease the ramakin dishes with margarine and put aside until needed.
3. Place the meat stock in a pan and bring to a boil.
4. Add the leeks, celery and carrots, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 3 - 5 minutes.
5. Transfer the vegetable mixture to a bowl and cool slightly.
6. Mix the cream and eggs together, then add them to the vegetable mixture, season with parsley, nutmeg, salt and pepper.
7. Divide the mixture into 6 ramakin dishes and seal with foil.
8. To bake: stand the 6 dishes on a cloth in a baking tin. Fill the tin with boiling.
9. water to 2/3 the height of the dishes and set the tin in the middle of baking sheet.
10. Bake for approximately 40 minutes on a low rack in the oven. The custard should give slightly when pressed with a finger.
11. Remove baking tin, take dishes out of water let stand for 5 minutes, them remove foil and cool slightly.
12. When serving carefully loosen custard around sides with the point of a knife.
13. Turn out onto plates and garnish with halved bacon slices.