With each new season comes an opportunity for Jackson Hole chefs to incorporate new ingredients, reflective of our valley, into creative dishes. This season, huckleberries can be found in savory and sweet dishes at restaurants across town.
As summer temperatures linger in the high 80s everyone is looking for that perfect after exercise cool-down beverage. Look no further than Persephone or Picnic and try a refreshing iced huckleberry latte. Both restaurants, equally after the latte lover’s heart, enjoy creating anything representative of the local bounty, and what better item than a unique local fruit for pastries and drinks. Patrons can find this delicious combination of coffee and huckleberry flavor, served at Persephone and Picnic, through September.
Well, coffee already has a delicious berry flavor, since it is a fruit itself, so the local huckleberry jaminess goes very well with our espresso drinks. We love it iced because it’s so refreshing on these hot days!
Ali Cohane, owner, Persephone and Picnic
If it’s sweets you’re after, check out the homemade huckleberry cheesecake at Rendezvous Bistro. Executive Pastry Chef for Fine Dining Restaurant Group, Chad Horton, grew up making cheesecakes with his grandmother and now the decadent treat holds a special place in the “arsenal of desserts” that he creates for the various restaurants.
I enjoy the unique flavor of Huckleberry. The tartness is very appealing to me and it pairs very well with citrus desserts, particularly lemon and key lime.
Chad Horton, executive pastry chef for Fine Dining Restaurant Group
Also, keep your eye out for local huckleberry Cream + Sugar artisan ice cream sandwiches made with a blend of huckleberries and wild blueberries. The fruit is mixed into sweet cream ice cream, hand scooped and put between signature chocolate chip cookies, and rolled in sprinkles, resulting in “a little piece of Wyoming heaven.”
For a more savory take on the local ingredient head to Il Villaggio Osteria Italian Cuisine and Wine Bar located in Hotel Terra in Teton Village. The chefs there have found a way to combine the seasonal fruit with entrees like the venison tenderloin wrapped in prosciutto and served with fingerling potatoes and asparagus with a huckleberry demi-glaze.
And if you’re looking for more ways to enjoy huckleberries from home, Annie Fenn, MD and founder of Brain Health Kitchen Cooking School, says one of the healthiest ways to eat huckleberries is to eat them raw.
Huckleberries are considered a brain food, which means they’re packed with polyphenols, potent antioxidants that combat stress in the brain. One polyphenol in particular, anthocyanin, comes from the plant pigment that gives huckleberries their blue, black color. Anthocyanins have specific brain health properties as well as a high polyphenol content as a response to fending off insults from the environment.
Cooking huckleberries breaks down the skins, where the anthocyanin resides, reducing their antioxidant power. If you do cook them, Fenn suggests, using gentle heat. Fold the fruit into pancake or waffle batter, warm them over low heat to make a sauce for elk steaks. or, use chia seeds, another antioxidant powerhouse ingredient, as a thickening agent to make a quick stove-top jam.
