This delicious, flavorful roast takes advantage of a favorite method of Italian cooking: slow, oven-top braising. This technique is used frequently by the La Romita cooks, and you can freely substitute other meats – beef, lamb, or even turkey, though the resulting roast will not be “arista” (see below).
It would be easy to mistake the word arista for arrosto (roast), especially since the result of this preparation is a pork roast, but arista is a regional name for a specific cut of pork that is famously prepared in this fashion in Umbria and Tuscany.
Butchers in parts of the world render animals in slightly different ways, so sometimes it can be hard to determine what exact cut of meat is optimal for a recipe, never mind the fact that the same cut can be called a half-dozen different names in the U.S.!
The part that the arista comes from is the Lonza, a section of the pig that contains the tenderloin. The actual cut from the lonza that is used for arista di maiale contains a section of the loin but also some of the rib meat. This “translates” nicely to in American terms to the “pork center loin roast” (also referred to as a “center cut pork roast”, “pork loin rib roast”, and other combinations of those words). An entirely different cut, the pork shoulder roast, can be substituted. In either case, you will need to truss (or have your butcher truss) the roast into a cylinder using a series of ties about an inch apart. This ensures even cooking.