Harissa Cauliflower Skewers
I've been leaning into cauliflower in recent years because it's a reliable hearty standby that's a pretty blank slate, making it a great starting point for vegetarian recipes. For all the times I've grilled cauliflower though, I've always been placing the large florets directly on the grill and that requires a fair amount of effort to manage since I'm always moving and flipping a lot of individual pieces. Not sure why skewering cauliflower hadn't occurred to me before, and it probably still wouldn't have if I wasn't hosting a skewer-themed Meatwave. But now that it has and I've tried it out, I'm hear to exalt the excellence of cauliflower skewers, and this harissa-coated version is also a damn tasty recipe in its own right.
The harissa idea came from both my past experience making a tasty chicken skewer using this North African pepper paste, combined with the fact that I had a jar of the stuff sitting in my fridge waiting for a use. There's both spicy and mild versions of harissa, and which you choose to use here is totally personal preference. On a normal day I would always opt for spicy, but my menu for this Meatwave was already leaning in that direction, so I used a mild paste because I wanted an alternative to all the spicy foods. Harissa does most of the heavy lifting in the marinade, but I added oil, lemon juice, parsley, mint, garlic, cumin, and a little honey to round out the flavor.
I usually leave cauliflower florets intended for grilling pretty large so they won't fall through the grates, but I was able to cut them a little smaller this time around since the skewer would ensure they stayed where I wanted them to. I love the exterior texture of grilled cauliflower, with bits of char and crispness providing a distinct grilled character, so I saw going smaller as a boon since it created not only more surface area for that to occur, but also for the sauce to cling to.
I was pretty sure there wasn't going to be much benefit to marinading here, but I had a need to prep this the day prior, so I did marry the cauliflower and sauce the night before for my own convenience. In the end, I think my gut instinct was correct because the stint in the fridge allowed time for moisture to be extracted from the cauliflower, diluting the marinade a bit. So I wrote the final recipe to skip the marinating time even though you're seeing it in photos here.
The main reason I needed to prep the night before is because I was working on a lot of recipes at once and there was no way I could have handled them all in a single day. I had five unique skewer recipes I was trying out, and I wrote up a sauce to go alongside most of those too. For the cauliflower, I tinkered a bit with a yogurt-based sauce I enjoyed with some shawarma-spiced skewers I did last year—I thought the lemon and tahini that defined the flavor of that sauce would be the right pairing here too,
While out shopping for charcoal, I noticed these new Weber skewer that were double pronged and thought of a lot of items that would benefit from the extra security that would offer. Cauliflower was one of those since I worried the florets might not stay put once they softened, but having them run through two skewers made that a non-issue.
I grilled these skewers how I've done most of my cauliflower—roasting over indirect heat until crisp-tender, than finishing them up over direct heat to get the best browning with strategic charring too. Before grilling, I lamented that the harissa sauce ended up looking paler than I was envisioning, but I was pleasantly surprised when that light orange hue turned deeper and more attractive after being grilled, leaving them pretty photogenic.
I also was concerned that light appearance of the marinade would translate to a flavor that was less-than I was hoping for, but that too was an unfounded worry. The mild harissa meant this had a slightly sweet pepper taste thanks to the bit of honey that was also in there. Without the heat, the helper ingredients also shined through like an earthiness from the cumin, a lemony tang, and minty, herbal touch. I was digging the flavor as-is, but the sauce did indeed pair well, although I found the more important duty of the sauce was the injection of some extra moisture, which made the whole thing feel complete.
