Japan's magic mushrooms make bog-standard varieties seem tasteless

Andrea Burgener reveals how to get bags of flavour out of exotic enoki, shimeji and shiitake mushrooms

Autumn says mushrooms. Which is weird if you grow up in a summer rainfall area, where wild mushrooms are suddenly a feature on the same table as icy cocktails and chilled soups. It's a Eurocentric thing, which has filtered into "common knowledge".

Anyway, rainfall patterns aside, modern "farming" means that mushrooms have long been a non-seasonal food (only very few varieties such as porcinis remain obstinate and elusive). So-called "wild" or "exotic" mushrooms are now distributed year round by a number of companies.

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Enoki (or enokitake or golden needle) and shimeji mushrooms are my favourites of these. They're both small, with long edible stems (the enoki in particular), and are bouncy and velvety.

I recommend you get them from the vegetable stalls on the Derrick Street Chinatown in Cyrildene. They're more reasonable than the very same thing on posh supermarket and deli shelves and every bit as good.

They're incredible chucked into a stir-fry for a few seconds, simmered with chicken or softened briefly in a broth.

Shimeji, enoki and shiitake really do make standard button and brown mushrooms seem tasteless.

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Shiitakes though, are best ignored when fresh. They are the one mushroom which is a hundred times better dried and reconstituted. When fresh they're as bland as tofu, but when dried and reconstituted, not only is the mushroom flavour intensified to a heady level of umami almost unequalled in other fungi forms, but the soaking liquid used for the reconstituting becomes an ingredient in itself, and forms a broth of immeasurable depth.

If you see dried shiitakes (Asian superettes), it really is worth going for the better end. The bottom rung is often not worth the perceived savings. Don't skrik too much at the price. They will more than double in volume when hydrated, there's no chance of them going to waste in the store-cupboard as they're practically fossilised, and a little goes a long way (plus there's the "free" broth you create).

How to cook with dried shiitake mushrooms

Place dried shiitakes in a large bowl, pour over boiling water to generously cover, and float a saucer on top to keep every bit of mushroom below the water. The Japanese, of course, have a special "drop-lid" for this purpose, made from wood. They think of everything. After anything from an hour onwards, the shiitakes will be plump, shiny and juicy (you can leave them in the water, refrigerated until the next day if you like).

Remove stems entirely and discard, slice shiitakes thinly and shove back into their water. I like to add soy and sake or mirin to the water, which makes a more delicious broth and keeps the mushrooms for longer.

Play around, they're pretty forgiving. Once they're a kitchen staple you'll wonder how you lived without them.

• This article was originally published in The Times.