Arm Roast with pizziola sauce

So, at the top of the freezer was another arm roast.  I cooked it and learned a lot.

I looked up arm roast and it is, unsurprisingly, related to the shoulder roast.  Some accounts indicated that the arm roast should actually be more tender than a shoulder roast.  I am not sure, but I am not enough of an expert to weigh in on that one.  I think, however, I can say this.  An arm roast is a cut for stewing, not grilling. It is not tender enough to be served like steak.

With that said, I still enjoyed cooking arm roast with pizziola sauce.  I found the recipe on Food Network.com.  The arm roast was coated in a spicy rub.  It was supposed to tenderize things somewhat.  I guess it may have.  The meat with the rub alone was actually quite good.  With the sauce, the rub kind of disappeared.

The sauce, that was the most gratifying part of the process.  I have seen Emeril Legasse talk a few times on his show about his holy trinity (I think it is onions, peppers and celery?  Or was it garlic?).  Anyway, all of those things were in this sauce.  I bought some fresh parsley, basil, etc., for this recipe.  I absolutely loved the smell that filled my house while this sauce full of fresh herbs and vegetables simmered.  I felt like a real cook.  I also learned a basic sauce that I can now modify for other recipes.  For example, this pizziola sauce is not unlike a chunky marinara.  We used it the next day on meatball subs.

Back to the arm roast - it was good.  The sauce was tasty and smelled great.  The meat tasted fine, but was certainly not overtender.  Overall, good meal, better experience.