Fruit

Avocado

Four to five minutes, and it is a texture change rather than a cook.

What it does in fast-moving hot air

Avocado flesh is mostly fat held in a soft cell structure, with far less water than any other fruit here. Heat does not drive water out because there is little to drive; instead the fat warms, the cell walls soften, and the cut face dries just enough to take colour. Four to five minutes is the point at which the surface has browned and the flesh has warmed through without the whole half collapsing. Beyond about seven minutes the structure fails and the fat separates, which tastes exactly as unpleasant as it sounds.

Why the cut matters

Grilled avocado is a small idea with a real published figure behind it, and it is worth a record because the thing people expect — that it will go soft — is the opposite of what happens.

Cooking pages

Grilled avocado halves — Four to five minutes cut side down, and nothing else.

There is deliberately no cooking time on this page. A food does not have one — a cut, at a thickness, in a state, at a loading, in a particular appliance does. That is what the pages above are for.