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Soup

Albanian Meat and Pasta Soup

A soup from Albania made with lamb or mince, carrots, onion, tomato puree, orzo pasta and parsley.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pasta and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,620 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Place the boned meat into a saucepan of boiling water and bring back to the boil.

  2. Cook for 2 hours so that the meat is tender and starting to come away from the bone.

  3. If mince is being used, skip the cooking of the meat in water.

  4. Once the meat is ready, remove from the heat and remove all the meat from the bone, placing it back into the water.

  5. Discard the bone.

  6. You will need about 2 litres of boiling water; discard some if you have too much.

Make the base

  1. In a frying pan fry the onion for a couple of minutes.

  2. If you are using mince, add the meat and continue to fry until the mince is browned.

  3. Add the carrots, puree and 100ml of boiling water.

  4. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes.

  5. Add the mixture into the water and meat saucepan, bring back to the boil and leave to simmer for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt, pepper, parsley and the dried vegetable stock.

  2. Add the soup pasta and leave to simmer for a further 30 minutes.

  3. Leave the soup to cool slightly, serving warm.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pasta + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together1,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,597 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Diced lamb
Provides rich meaty flavour and chewy tenderness as it becomes tender during long simmering.
Orzo soup pasta
Adds body and starch that thickens the broth as it cooks.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the soup base.
Tomato puree
Adds concentrated tomato acidity, savoury depth and a deeper red colour.
Onion
Builds a sweet aromatic base when softened in the frying pan.

The step that matters

Add the soup pasta and simmer for 30 minutes. Pasta keeps absorbing liquid and swelling while it simmers, so the soup can turn thick and starchy if left too long. Check the texture and add more water if needed.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pasta, carrot, tomato, pepper, parsley, olive):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Eggplantbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pasta, carrot, tomato, pepper, parsley, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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