This traditional Greek Goat Soup uses a meat stock as a base (can also be made with lamb or beef). It's made with fresh tomatoes, spaghetti and is topped with crumbled feta cheese. This soup is simplicity at its finest!
Personally, it's one of my two favorite winter meals, along with the Egg-lemon Chicken Soup. To me, goat meat is the most delicious meat you can turn into a stock soup!
Type Of Meat
For this soup, it's preferred to use an elder male goat. An older female goat is used to make Gida Vrasti while younger goats we mostly bake in the oven as we do with lamb.
Goat meat has a strong and distinctive flavor. If you like lamb, I'm sure you love goat also. But if you can't tolerate the smell of lamb, then I suggest to skip using goat or lamb and go ahead using beef instead.
Whatever meat you choose to use for this soup, it MUST come with bones. You cannot make a flavorful stock without bones and that's a fact!
How To Make A Meat Stock Soup
To make a meat stock soup you simply simmer the meat with water, then remove the meat and pass the stock through a sieve to remove any small bones.
Bring stock to a boil and add remaining ingredients (in this case, blended tomatoes, spaghetti, bay leaf). Shred the meat and add to the soup once the soup is cooked.
NOTE: Don't season the meat with salt while it's boiling as it's going to get hard this way. Season the stock instead, once the meat is removed from the pot.
Make sure to simmer the meat for 2-3 hours until it feels very tender when you prick it. The reason we cook a stock or broth for so long is that the bone marrow takes time to break apart and get released into the soup, giving us the miraculous collagen.
Collagen heals all body tissues that need repairing. Which makes this soup other than delicious and nourishing a very healthy one as well!
As for the pasta, the thinner the better. I use spaghetti No 10 (because it comes in numbers in Greece) its the same as thin spaghetti or spaghettini. You can even use angel hair pasta.
And because wherever there is pasta, there has to be cheese, this soup is served with crumbled feta cheese. You may skip it if you like but it really makes all the difference. Just give it a try and tell me your thoughts. ?
Like Goat Meat?
Then you can also use it instead of lamb to make traditional Greek Giouvetsi. A scrumptious orzo pasta baked in the oven with tomato sauce!
Recipe
Greek 5-Ingredient, Healing Goat Soup
Ingredients
- 2 Kg / 4 lb + 6 oz male goat meat with bone-in (parts like shanks, leg, shoulder) you may use lamb or beef instead
- 2 medium-sized tomatoes (nice and ripe)
- 1 tablespoon double concentrated tomato paste
- 150 grams / 5.2 oz spaghetti No 10 / or angel hair pasta
To Serve With:
- feta cheese crumbled
Instructions
- Add the meat to a large cooking pot (preferably a stockpot) and cover completely with water.
- Bring to a boil over high heat.
- Once it starts boiling reduce heat to medium-high.
- Skim off any foam that forms on the surface.
- Simmer for about 2-2,5 hours or until the meat feels soft when you prick it with a knife.
- Remove meat from pot and transfer to a large pan setting it aside to cool.
- Pass the stock through a sieve to remove any small bones.
- Add the stock back to the pot. Note: The remaining stock should be about 3 liters if not add more water to it. Also if the meat comes from an older animal there will be lots of fat in the stock. So let it stand for a few minutes so you can easily remove most the liquid fat that will collect on the surface (but not all), using a spoon. On the other hand, if the meat comes from a younger animal, you may need to add a splash of olive oil to it. As some fat is needed to flavor the soup.
- Season the stock with salt and pepper. And bring back to a boil.
- Using a blender, blend the tomatoes until smooth and add to the pot along with the tomato paste.
- Simmer over medium-high heat for about 15 minutes more
- If using spaghetti, take a couple in your hands and cut them into smaller parts to about 3 cm (1,5 inch) long. If using angel hair pasta, cut in half.
- Add pasta to the pot and simmer until the pasta gets cooked.
- Remove the bones from the meat, shred meat into small pieces and add to the pot. Check if some extra salt is needed.
- Serve with crumbled feta cheese on top.
Nutrition
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