Risotto Primavera & Alex Pawlak Interview

Risotto Primavera & Alex Pawlak Interview – Risotto Primavera is a delightful Italian dish that celebrates the fresh flavors of spring. Risotto Primavera translates to “spring risotto.” It’s made by slowly cooking rice in broth, wine, and olive oil with springtime vegetables and herbs.

You can customize your risotto primavera by using different spring vegetables or adding other ingredients like artichoke hearts or sautéed mushrooms. Risotto primavera can be a light main course or a substantial side dish.

Alex Pawlak is a personal chef and runs the great pasta restaurant in Milwaukee called Egg & Flour Pasta Bar (https://www.greateffingpasta.com/). Alex shows us how he makes Risotto Primavera.

You can find the recipe here on our website – https://cookingsecretsformen.com/2024/05/08/risotto-primavera-alex-pawlak-interview/

The podcast can be heard here – https://cookingwithcommunityleaders.podbean.com/e/chef-alex-pawlak-and-risotto-primavera/

Sauce MKE is a no-profit that deals with food scarcity here in Milwaukee – (http://saucemilwaukee.org/)

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00:00 Start
00:33 Alex Pawlak interview
01:06 Alex’s early years
02:33 Culinary School
04:35 Sauce MKE Fundraiser
04:57 Alex’s Community Work
07:30 Other work around town
08:45 Italian Dance Group – Tradizione Vivente
10:14 What are we preparing today?
11:07 Warming the stock
11:38 Making the spinach/green pea purée
12:43 Making the risotto
14:23 Adding the arborio rice
16:05 Garlic Bread in the oven
17:10 Adding stock to the rice
19:36 Putting the purée in the rice
20:11 Butter into the risotto
21:31 Parmesan cheese into the risotto
23:03 Taste test
23:21 Forgot the garlic bread
28:38 Outro

[Music] hi I’m Charlie and this is cooking with Milwaukee Community leaders cooking with Milwaukee Community leaders is available both as a podcast wherever you get great podcast and on video on our YouTube channel cooking secrets for men so to today my guest I’m pleased to have Alex Pollock Alex thank you Charlie good to see you good to see you um so Alex is a personal chef here in um Milwaukee um and we’ll get to that and how we met and and the work that you do around town but I want to start where we usually start which is the beginning so um you were born and raised here in Milwaukee yeah born and raised here in Milwaukee and the grew up in the Bay View U area still live there talk a little bit about um growing up here in Milwaukee and then how that helped shape who you’ve become today yeah um so Milwaukee you know the small little town um next to the next to the big one down in Chicago and uh I I come from a sicilian and polish and Norwegian family uh my grandpa uh last name pavlock so uh that’s how I got that last name um unfortunately didn’t get to spend spend much time with our polish side of the family when we were younger um but on the other side of the coin I got to spend a lot of time with my Sicilian family and that was all the food so absolutely yeah so we we uh had a really big family always cooking uh my mom always cooked uh pretty much every meal here and there we’d go out for a go out for a meal but it was it was mainly in the kitchen um and all of our family events are always kitchen so we always walk watched me and my brother uhuh well it could have been the reverse could have been really bad cuz you had Norwegian food instead of Sicilian food so it’s you know the reverse so he get all the you anyway um so you um you ended up going to MATC which is the uh milwauke Area Technical College right down here uh downtown um and the culinary school there which is a which is a very good culinary institute here in the in the regional area so talk a little bit about that and was that your dream to cook for living yeah so growing up I always thought I wanted to be a teacher um and I was like I’m going to be a teacher I like working with kids I think they’re fun they keep people young and um I went to wwm and decided that wasn’t really for me um and I always uh growing up I always worked in restaurants U all over all over the city and um my mom was like oh you got to go back to school for something so I was like well let’s uh let’s go into the culinary program so uh went into the culinary program in MATC uh graduated I think about 10 years ago or so um and yeah it’s a really awesome program um learn a lot you learn a lot from people that are in the industry as well as just people that can teach you the skills that you need I’ve seen videos about the culinary program ATC I know they have chefs I think Paul Barada or maybe it’s Joe Barada one of them um would come in and then help teach with the the groups and and it was uh you know it seemed like a great program yeah it it’s a it’s an awesome program um I haven’t experienced any other programs but for being a public school so it’s the best one you’ve ever been in Milwaukee Area Technical College that’s right all right so you and I met at a fundraiser recently earlier this year at uh Antigua Latin restaurant I’ll give them a little shout out um uh it was a fundraiser for S MK which is our mutual friend Giani varro’s brainchild um s MK is a nonprofit here in Milwaukee that deals with food scarcity and trying to um not only uh take uh help people with food scarcity issues but also provide healthy meals which happen to be vegan um so you put together this dinner um and I have the menu right here you have to see this this is uh we saved this because the menu was so good um and by the third uh dish uh I was full but I soldiered on and and did I did get to the cheesecake and finish that um but it was it was fabulous so uh talk a little about how that dinner came together and that is emblematic of some of the work that you do here in the community yeah so I’ve been I’ve been friends with Giani for about 12 years um we met in a um extracurricular uh dance group uh here in Milwaukee Italian dance group uh and uh the dinner all came about cuz my my brother is also um into the culinary scene here in Milwaukee and every year for I believe the last five uh years he has um MK collaboration dinner where he gets chefs from all over the city um they all support their own personal charity right um and and it raises money for everybody um and through food it’s like the best the best uh vessel for that um so I helped him out with that dinner and I said well that would be fun I’m into cooking um let’s kind of let’s let’s start uh another one and um so GI being my friend I said well let’s let’s focus on her charity um and I found a couple chefs um in the area um that either they cook vegan or they have experience with that or they just enjoy cooking and wanted to do a dish and um we put together the seven course um vegan meal cuz her charity is vegan so we wanted to kind of stick to that and uh make make vegan food taste good so well that was one thing I I wanted to mentioned that you did have other chefs in there uh you were kind of front of the house um you three I think three of the dishes were yours at least four were yours okay um and then the other chefs came out with their um their dish and they were all delicious they all were um and I think you I think there’s a couple of them that yeah I don’t really cook vegan but um you know I wanted to give this a shot and and you know they did cuz they like to cook so that was a great one so um talking about any of the other the areas that you’re involved with that U you know as I mentioned um to before we came on um most of the work that’s done in in anonymity is by people who are volunteers people who give their time and talents to organizations to nonprofits to Charities to foundations and that they’re not trumpeted enough so uh talk about some of the work I know you don’t you’re not looking for publicity but you know the the work that you do in terms of being a volunteer and giving you your time and talents is uh it it’s to be lotted yeah I appreciate that um so my my full-time job I’m the chef manager of Egen flow uh pasta bar for my brother um and then like you said I I’ve been starting to get into the personal chef thing but the the volunteer work and and doing stuff for the community is is a little bit more rewarding um and and like you said this the small uh the smaller stuff the people that are on the on the front lines uh kind of help more I mean you you can have all this money influx with like big companies donating things but sometimes that doesn’t always reach the people that are in need right um so I’ve been I’ve been trying to help out with Giani with uh with sauce um my cousin uh has a charity called this time tomorrow okay uh where they do random acts of kindness um for uh patients dealing with cancer um so my brother does a lot of um charity work with them and I’ve kind of piggybacked on him helping him out with dinners and and different different things going on um and you just like to stay busy good um so you mentioned this a little earlier and I did want to have you talk a little bit about the Italian dance group that you’re involved with and you have been I found out today for 20 something years yeah we’re I think I’m coming up on my 22nd year 21st year uh our Italian dance group is the Italian dance group of Milwaukee Trad vente um we practice over here in the Italian Community Center a couple blocks away right um it’s a volunteer based group uh it’s been run by the dcus family for 40 years I would assume I I’m I’m guessing there I don’t have all the ins and outs of it but um yeah we are U uh we’re a nonprofit uh we usually dance at our Italian Fest here in Milwaukee uh dance coming up next month yep right at the end of the month uh May 31st through the 2 through the second um we dance on in Chicago weddings all sorts of stuff so it’s a it’s another extracurricular activity it’s kind of a a volunteer based thing we don’t get paid to do it um it’s just fun being out in the community that’s uh 22 years in one place in a in an activity like that just I I tip my hat too sir um so let me give you one of our aprons here and as you we we talk about you’re you are working as a personal chef and you work at egg and flour but today you’re cooking with me actually I’m cooking with you because you’re an actual Chef I just play one on YouTube so what are we making today uh today uh we are it’s about to be Springtime here or it is Springtime here in Milwaukee so beautiful day I thought we should maybe uh do a springtime risotto okay um so we got some peas and spinach and um some fresh uh produce and it should be tasty all right so we’ve done a little prep work give us a minute um we’re going to go back to the the cooking area um and then we’re going to put together a nice Roto and I think we have uh a little garlic bread and uh we might have to taste it afterwards that’s good that’s the best part good all right so we’re in agreement we’re going to eat all right so give us a minute be right back all right so we’re over here at the uh at the stove we are here we’ve got some uh vegetable stock there you got our ve veggie stock you’re going to keep that warm cuz we’re going to use it through the cooking process okay uh the first thing we could get out of the way we’re going to make a puree for this so um sometimes you see it on the on the TV shows and the other cooking you get a really bright green or if you can use other ingredients and you get different color risoto right um that’s cuz they’re using puree that they’re going to add into the risotto so we’re going to make a spinach and pea puree to give that risotto a nice green color okay for this recipe we have about uh 1 and 1/2 cups of peas we’re going to pop that right here into our blender all right lots of peas we parboiled and put them in a nice bath and then some fresh spinach fresh spinach in a bag fresh spinach in a b bag it works and we’re going to use about a cup of that okay we got that going and then some olive oil and olives in all right now if you need a little bit more you can always add a little bit more okay and then we’re going to give it a go all right so we have spinach peas little broth and a little olive oil to make our Pure gray yeah and that’s going to be bright bright green color that’s going to look really nice in our risotto okay you can start actually making the rotto I think people get a little scared of rotto cuz they see it as a as a fancy Dancy dish but it’s all about uh patience and building flavors and I like to build flavors um throughout but I like to season towards the end all right so we put a couple of tablespoons teaspoons in uh of olive oil into the pan yeah a little olive oil going uh next we’re going to get some garlic and some shallots going okay and we have about about five cloves of garlic and about two two shallots so once we get hot there and they always say it um I haven’t figured out the exact reason but they always say to use a wooden spoon of rizoto so I just keep going uh they say it kind of helps break down the the starch um in the uh in the rice so I I don’t argue with them all right once we get our oil hot we’re going to pop our garlic in there so the Garlic’s going in and Alex you’re being Italian and I’m Italian also we’ve I like to say there’s no such thing is too much garlic no not at all those are shall anybody is a vampire there’s garlic and shallots there they’re almost in every single Cuisine so so I was in Italy about a year ago I’m going back in September and one of the things that was um noticeable to me is that the Roto in Italy is alante yeah they like to leave it with a little bit of bite I personally think it’s it’s your preference but if you do leave a little you want to leave a little Integrity to the rice once we get our uh shallots and our garlic going we’re going to add in our rice just to give it a little bit of toast uh before we add in anything else so this is our boreo rice which boreo rice used for vetto and we have a couple people eating today so I think we’re going to do about let’s say four cups of rice and we’re we’re feeding people who like to eat today so there’s they’ll be around here and um like to feed the people who are work in the office just because so once we’re toasting we’re just toasting our our boreo rice a little bit mixing in with the shallots and the garlic there toast with the oil and how’ you say the garlic and the shs um so now we are going to take some uh white wine here and we’re going to De glaze love that sound and they say with risoto uh use a wine that you’re going to you would drink right you don’t want to just use uh something on the Shelf because again your building flavor so if it’s something that you would drink and you want to put it in there now you don’t have to use wine this is our good friend Josh whoever Josh is and here’s where we’re going to start here’s where we’re going to start going so uh over here you got your you got your stock going and it doesn’t have to be boiling you’re just going to keep it warm cuz you’re going to be adding to the rice and the rice is going to be cooking with it so if it was just straight cold it would take too much time to bring up and it would take a long time with your rice so you want to bring it warm so you can you know keep it going all right so I have a little garlic bread here we going toe and put this in our oven there we go all right I’ll be in charge of that so the I’m reaching the the secret the secret Charlie’s garlic bread recipe that’s right take it out of a bag and put it on a pan actually I’m having a somebody’s coming in on Saturday and she wants to learn how to make garlic bread so I’m going to have to make it from from scratch do you have a do you have a special kind that you do the garlic bread or my favorite is the uh the the mam Mia style where it’s completely dunked dunked and covered in h garlic salt or garlic powder I’ll make a little compound butter and uh slather it on little probably some chopped parsley or something to go with it but yeah it’s for for the purposes of this show this is the star oh yeah um so now we our liquid is pretty evaporated so now we are going to slowly start adding in stock okay and this is just going to keep on go um keep going so you’re going to keep on putting stock in and cooking it down until it evaporates and you’re going to add a little bit more and you’re going to add a little bit more so it is a timec consuming uh dish some people add too much right away and then they’re basically waiting for a soup to uh cook down that’s the key is to just add it little by little and be patient yeah and this is a good dish if you have people over or whatever you chat you can kind of keep an eye on it uh and you can and you can do other stuff while you’re while you’re making it it’s perfect attach you can talk and use your hands at the same time oh yeah I think Alex is more Italian than I am I’m almost positive is your mother 100% uh my mom is 50 I believe oh then we’re about the same and then my dad is 50 so oh he is well 5050 yeah he’s uh 50% polish 50% uh Sicilian oh then you’re definitely more than me just my dad was Italian and he was only half Italian but for anyone listening I’m I claim 100% there’s not uh many bad things uh about being Italian you get best food and wine and culture and fun and and now we got our risotto here is uh we soaked up most of that that stock that we put in there so now we’re going to go ahead it again add some more stock keep this process going and we keep going until this the stock is absorbed yeah and we’re going to we’re going to take this to probably about 75 or 85% before we have to add in any of our of our standby ingredients uh we have our puree uh with butter cheese and then salt and pepper all the good stuff so all right so we’re going to continue to stir here and then we’ll be back when we get to put the good stuff in we be right back all right so we’ve added we’ve done a couple more rounds with the stock and looking pretty good there we did and our rice is growing all right U now we’re going to add in um some of our some of our fun ingredients we have our puree here this is going to give us that nice color okay so this is the Pea spinach little stock and olive oil um pure we’ll start there and see okay if we need to add more like the Chicago River on St Patrick’s Day we can add more all right because it’s not going to hurt it now we got our nice green color now we’re going to add in some flavor here all right we’re going to do um we’re going to add in some butter I got a stick of butter here uh for this amount of rice I think that’ll be um a good amount I think so that’s about A4 lb4 lb of butter get that incorporated a little bit and then we’re going to add some cheese and we want to add our salt and pepper they always say salt and pepper to taste um and some people are like well what does that mean uh make it taste good I the amount of people who ask me well why don’t you put salt and pepper numbers in your recipes it says cuz some people don’t use salt yeah some people need it for a dietary reason some people just aren’t in but salt is going to be it salt brings out your flavor and everything but what you just said is correct to taste so if you want to put more salt in in if you don’t want to put enough salt in it’s up to you and now you have that creaminess going on when you add it in the butter and the puree I’ll add some of that too we have a little pepper here little black pepper black pepper you can use white pepper um if we didn’t have like a if we weren’t green here and you wanted to keep it a really light color and you didn’t want to see the pepper you could add a little bit of white pepper just be careful with it and then our final ingredient cheese Parmesan Parmesan all right and this again I’m adding about a half a cup to start and it all really depends on how much um rice you have if you add in too much you’re going to turn into a big glob and if you need more stock we still have some yeah and if you need to thin it out you have the leftover stock um if you’d like to add in something else here you can all right let’s check on our garlic bread down here getting a little brown give it another minute or two garlic just wafting through this room now would you put more wine in at this point or that’s this is this is pretty good I’m going to give it a taste we’ll see where we are at on the rice and the flavoring with your salt it’s got a really bright PE flavor I think that is is good think we’re about done I think we are and now you can add in other veggies you can garnish it with veggies we do have some reserved peas here okay so what we’ll do is we’ll go ahead and um put this together and then we’ll get some garnishes and make it look pretty and then we’ll sit down with our garlic bread and have a little late lunch since this is it’s not breakfast but it’s not lunch so sounds good all right man be right back all right here we are all right so Alex we made it tell us what we got here uh we have a nice spring pea risoto uh topped with some nice peas chives um and hopefully some of that good looking parmesan cheese right there oh I forgot the garlic bread oh and the garlic bread all right so I forgot the garlic bread and here it is so it’s here I’m give you the guess so thank you sir a little garlic bread and so we have extra peas we’ve got extra chives chopped thank you I’ll take that and parano oh after you Chef I could do it for you yes chef did you watch the bear does everybody watch the bear at the restaurant I like calling everybody chef yeah that was the catch line of that all righty and with a little palm yum yum all righty and Milwaukee’s got so many uh farmers markets and everything you can you can add in so many different things uh I like this one it’s good you could add a nice uh piece of pork to it if you wanted to or bacon um find that pretty popular right nothing left to do but oh I need a piece of garlic bread take it to give it a bite delicioso That’s Italian for [Music] delicious and the risotto is at this close to al dante it’s it’s not quite but it’s not mush it’s it has a little bit of that um bite to it a little and the the peas are good which makes you the peas are the a nice compliment in terms of texture um cuz they’re also a little little hard texture wise on the Pea taste it’s funny to say that um the green pea peas that are frozen the taste really comes out from the puree yeah it’s really like the concentrated uh pea flavor that I see what you’re saying um The Sweet Pea flavor um really adds to risoto as well as making it giving it the color I don’t really taste the the spinaches much but I certainly do taste um those Garden peas a lot of the spinach is for the color as well keep it nice and green rather than uh flavor and it’s seasoned perfectly there’s not it’s not over seasoned it’s not too peppery it’s not too um salted and the parmesan on top is perfect you should do this for a living i’ try no this is wonderful m just two Italian boys sitting around and have a little Roto yeah it’s a it’s a nice way to uh share a sunny afternoon one more bite and the bread is there to soak up anything left behind so Alex come back towards me just a little bit before you take another bite thanks so much for coming thank you much for having me um not officially a community leader yet but hopefully we can start doing some great things here in uh in the city and uh move it in the right direction like we we talked about earlier people who are down working um as volunteers and giving their time and talents and trying to affect change for specifically we you know we talked about um sauce MK and and how the I don’t know how much you guys raised on that fundraiser but it had to have a good effect you we filled that Antigua I didn’t say we we do I wasn’t we I was one of the I was one of them um but it was filled and it was you know was the the chefs gave their time and and and you did and it was just it work great yeah I think we we had about 54 54 guests uhhuh uh we were trying to sell 50 so we had a couple stragglers on the end and and it made it there and um yeah we raised about $4,000 for charity um and um me and my brother were talking about getting something else going so good um be on the lookout for another uh coed out dinner ooh I can’t wait so thank you all for taking the time to watch and listen to cooking with Milwaukee Community leaders cooking with with Milwaukee Community leaders is a produced here in the Third Ward we uh try to Spotlight people who are trying to make a difference in our city and so for everyone out there thanks so much for supporting cooking with Milwaukee Community leaders thanks for listening to another episode of cooking with Milwaukee Community leaders cooking with Milwaukee Community leaders is brought to you by cooking secrets for men LLC and was recorded in the Third Ward in Milwaukee Wisconsin we feature and profile Community leaders who trying to make Milwaukee a better place the tagline is serious people with serious jobs having a little fun our guests choose the recipes that we use on the show all of our podcasts are available on iTunes Spotify and wherever you get great podcasts the original YouTube video for this episode is available on our YouTube channel cooking secrets for men All Rights Reserved thanks and see you next time on cooking with Milwaukee Community leaders oh [Music]