Snip off the hard stems (but don’t discard them – add to soups and stock). Shiitake go well with pork, meat and steamed fish; they can also be mixed with ordinary cultivated mushrooms.

But sometimes you might not be able to find fresh shiitake mushrooms at the grocery store, and most of us don't have time to scrounge around multiple places for an ingredient, so we spoke with ...

Snip off the hard stems (but don’t discard them – add to soups and stock). Shiitake go well with pork, meat and steamed fish; they can also be mixed with ordinary cultivated mushrooms.