Shiitake

Thanks to her background in Vietnamese cooking, Marcia Kiesel loves the texture of sticky rice, especially when it's combined with velvety shiitake mushrooms.

Charles Phan prefers tender baby bok choy but if you can only find mature heads, separate the leaves from the stems, cut the stems into 1 1/2-inch pieces and stir-fry them separately so the leaves don't overcook.

This comforting, vegetable-packed rice is infused with ginger. It's best made with day-old rice to absorb all the flavorings.

David Chang flavors this fabulous broth with dried shiitakes; fresh shiitakes intensify the flavor. The highlight: simple noodles thrown in at the end. "They're based on the udon I learned to make in Tokyo," Chang says.

All cuts of chicken are rich in tryptophan. Breasts are leaner than thighs, but dark meat is still healthy; a 4-ounce skinless serving has just 11 grams of fat.

The shiitake crab cakes add a touch of flavor to this sweet corn soup.

This pasta is a lighter take on lasagna. Instead of layering the ingredients, then baking in the oven, Justin Smillie tosses them in a goat cheese sauce, sprinkles Parmigiano-Reggiano on top and crisps the dish briefly under the broiler.

Plenty of sweet shallots and meaty shiitakes add flavor to this hearty barley dish from F&W's Kay Chun.

Dr. Andrew Weil mixes sake with soy sauce, sesame oil and brown sugar to make an Asian-accented glaze for shiitake. Using the meaty-tasting mushrooms as a topping for salmon creates a dish loaded with heart-protective omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins and protein.

The base for this tofu, eggplant and shiitake katiev ("noodle soup" in Cambodian) is a made-from-scratch vegetable stock with a long ingredient list, including two types of cabbage and dried Chinese mushrooms.

Beef stock and red wine make a luxurious sauce for this salmon recipe by Bernie Sun, corporate beverage director for Jean-Georges Vongerichten's restaurant group.

This vegetarian risotto is infused with the moderately hot Chimayo chile powder from the town of Chimayo in northern New Mexico. Shiitakes not only add an earthy flavor, they also provide zinc and several B vitamins.