The stock can be made a day ahead if you wish.

Place all stock ingredients into a stock pot and bring to a boil.

Lower to a simmer and skim off and discard brown foam that floats to the top.

Simmer stock for two hours.

After two hours, remove pork with tongs and set aside to cool.

Remove and discard three bay leaves.

Use an immersion blender and puree what remains in the pot. There should be exactly two quarts of pureed liquid. If there is more, place it back in the pot and slowly cook down to two quarts being careful that it doesn’t stick. If less than two quarts, make up the difference with water. Set aside for now.

Pick meat off of the bones and discard bones, fat and connecting tissue. Break the meat up with your fingers into bite sized or larger pieces and set aside.

In a 6-quart soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, add the olive oil and once hot, add the onions.

Cook the onions for five minutes or so until completely tender. It is OK if they start to brown.

Add the tomato paste and cook for three minutes stirring often so it doesn’t stick.

Add the stock and scrape any brown bits from the bottom. (If any sediment settled to the bottom of the stock container or pot, stop pouring before you get to it. I had a few peppercorns settle to the bottom which I discarded)

Add the two cans of crushed tomatoes, dill fronds and cooked pork.

Bring to a simmer and place a heat defuser under the pot and a splatter screen over the top and once simmering, cook 30 minutes. Try not to break up the pork too much.

While the soup is cooking, cook the mini pasta and set aside.

After 30 minutes, add in the sour cream and butter off heat and stir gently until they are melted into the soup.

Serve with some of the pasta sprinkled over the top, or stirred in, and top with more sour cream and chopped dill fronds.