Giuliano Hazan, Italian chef, cookbook author, culinary instructor and son of the late renowned Italian cookbook author Marcella Hazan, is launching a line of Italian specialty foods under the "Giuliano’s Classic" moniker. The products include tomato sauce, extra-virgin olive oil and carnaroli rice so Italian-food lovers can create authentic flavor in their own pans.

 Hazan teaches cooking classes in Italy and America, and he is able to take his pupils in Italy to the locations where some of these foods are from--but that cannot be done in America. “Not everybody can come to Italy to experience these things. I always wanted to be able to bring these special products to the States,” he says.

 Hazan says he wanted to be able to teach his students what food products they should be using, why they should be using them and how to use them by making these products available.

Italian Tomato Sauce

Hazan says he has captured the taste of his mother’s famous tomato sauce with four ingredients: imported Italian San Marzano tomatoes, onions, butter and sea salt.“As powerful as Proust’s Madeleine, my mother’s tomato, butter and onion sauce unfailingly elicits feelings of comfort and well-being,” Hazan says. He altered his mother’s tradition of removing the whole onion from the sauce after it's cooked and decided to puree the onion, leaving it in the sauce. Hazan says the sauce can pair with pasta, seafood, meats and vegetables.

Classic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

The olive oil is imported from Italy, east of Verona, by a family owned artisanal olive oil producer. Hazan says he uses the olive oil in everything he makes. “The thing about olive oil is, when we use olive oil in Italian cooking, it’s for the flavor that it gives the dish,” Hazan says.

 Hazan says the olive oil is great on any salad, pasta, entrée or vegetable.

Carnaroli Rice

This rice is produced south of Verona at a family-run artisanal rice mill using a mortar and pestle. Hazan says that the carnaroli rice “is considered the ‘prince’ of risotto rice.”

Hazan is also working on two more sauces and more products to offer in the States that he says he will hopefully launch soon. In the meantime, you can find all of these products online at Giuliano Hazan’s website and in select gourmet food stores. In Sarasota, Casa Italia offers all three of the foods, Morton’s Gourmet Market has the olive oil and the tomato sauce, and the Ancient Olive on St. Armands has the tomato sauce. Ancient Olive is also offering the tomato sauce in their two other locations in Tampa and Winter Park Florida.