Innovazione e tradizione al servizio del gusto
Passion and love.
Italiqa was born from Beatrice and Roberto’s passion for food and wine and their innate conviviality. Food is love, and love cannot exist without sharing.
Thus, this project that combines tradition and modernity was inspired by a childhood memory associated with Beatrice’s grandmother, who lovingly and devotedly would roll out the pastry every Sunday and then gather the family around the table.
Expertise and attention to the product.
Italiqa is a pasta factory that creates delicious dishes with skilled hands who are passionate about pasta. It is a world of taste and emotion. Additionally, it allows you to purchase the taste of tradition online.
High-quality, authentic products, attention to detail, respect for tradition, and modern form and design represent its core values.
Pastificio non è abbastanza.
Il laboratorio della pasta
Italiqa products are created in a real fresh pasta workshop where expert hands passionately prepare the sheet of pasta, the filling and even the broth every day, following traditional and refined recipes.
La sfoglia
La base della tradizione.
Il ripieno
La casa del gusto.
Il brodo
Il segreto della nonna.
La sfoglia
La base della tradizione.
In Emilia Romagna, pasta making is a true art, a ritual handed down from generation to generation (or perhaps it would be better to say from grandmother to grandmother!). Two simple but essential ingredients are needed to make the authentic Emilia Romagna pasta sheet: flour and eggs. To get a flawless round shape, it is forcefully rolled out with a rolling pin. It has a rough and full-bodied texture ideal to be used as a base for fresh pasta typical of Emilia Romagna: tortellini, tortelli, cappelletti, spoja lorda, tagliatelle, garganelli, and so on.
A lot of experience and manual ability are needed to create a perfect pasta sheet. That is why the work of sfogline (someone who makes sfoglia, fresh pasta sheet) is considered an art to be protected and safeguarded.
How we prepare the Emilian sheet of pasta in our workshop.
– We sift the flour onto the pastry board and make a well in the center. We crack the eggs and beat them with a fork until they are perfectly blended and smooth. At this point, we start preparing the dough.
– We add part of the flour to the eggs, incorporating a little at a time: this will thicken the eggs little by little and prevent the flour ring from breaking and the eggs from scattering on the pastry board.
– We cover the eggs with the remaining flour and work quickly until a homogeneous dough is obtained (adding more flour if necessary). The consistency should be drier and tougher for pasta such as tagliatelle, and wetter for filled pasta.
– We then place the dough in a bowl and cover it with a plate. We carefully clean the pastry board and let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes.
– At this point, we take the rolling pin. We place the dough on the pastry board and with a wide, quick movement we roll it out from the center outwards, turning it a quarter of the way. Once it has become large, to turn it, we roll it on the rolling pin itself. We continue with wide, controlled movements until we obtain a thin, uniform, round sheet.
– At this point, our ‘sfoglia’ (pasta sheet) is ready to be cut and worked into a real Emilian dish.
Il ripieno
La casa del gusto
As far as the filling of the tortellino Bolognese is concerned, its recipe is, in part, still to be defined (and who knows if it will ever be!). In fact, if on the list of ingredients, which includes pork loin, ham, mortadella, parmesan, eggs, and nutmeg there are no doubts, on the treatment of the meat, the discussion is lost in the mists of time: should it be used cooked or raw?
For us – as well as for the Confraternita del Tortellino, which deposited the recipe with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce in 1974 – pork should be cooked before being used to prepare the tortellini filling.
How we prepare the tortellini filling in our workshop.
– Cover the loin with a mixture of garlic, rosemary, and salt and let it rest for two days.
– Then we cook it over low heat with butter, and once removed from the pan, we clean it of its mince.
– Finally, we chop the loin, ham, and mortadella finely and combine them with the Parmesan cheese and eggs, adding the nutmeg for a spicy kick.
– We mix the dough for a long time until it is completely incorporated, and then we let it rest for at least twenty-four hours before filling the tortellini.
– The taste of the filling depends on the quality of the raw materials used.
Il brodo
Il segreto della nonna.
Here in Emilia Romagna, it was a tradition to eat a first dish in broth every Sunday lunch. Tortellini, in particular, were a symbol of the holidays – Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year’s, and Easter.
And what meatballs—made with leftover cooked meat—arrived on the table on a Tuesday! The boiled meat was served with green sauce, giardiniera, or shallots in oil, and if there was leftover, it could be used to make meatballs or sautéed in a pan with tomatoes.
Grandma used to make broth even in the summer when the temperature would drop. For her, perhaps a whole summer without broth was too long!
The broth is an essential ingredient in our recipes. There are many schools of thought: we, for example, use tomato, cloves, and Parmesan rind, which others may omit. But let’s not forget that ours is a special broth: a signature broth.
How we prepare the capon broth in our pasta workshop.
– Add the carrot, celery, onion, Parmesan rind, and the Cervia salt (sea salt, extracted and packed according to traditional methods in Cervia, in Emilia Romagna).
– After bringing it to a boil, we reduce the heat and cook for about two hours, sometimes skimming the foam throughout the first thirty minutes.
– We then strain the broth, adjust the salt, and let it cool.
– After that, we move it to a covered container in the fridge and give it a few hours to cool.
– Once cold, we degrease it.