Fruit
Lemons and limes
A few minutes cut side down, and the point is what it does to the juice rather than to the fruit.
What it does in fast-moving hot air
The cut face of a lemon or lime is a grid of juice-filled vesicles behind a thin membrane. Direct heat caramelises the sugars in that membrane and in the pith while the juice behind it warms without evaporating much, which softens the acidity and adds a faint bitterness from the browned pith. The published time is enough for colour on the face; longer dries the vesicles and the fruit stops yielding juice, which defeats the exercise.
Why the cut matters
Grilled citrus is a technique rather than a dish, and it has a published figure, so it belongs here. Nobody eats a grilled lemon; they squeeze it over something else, and it tastes different for having been cooked.
Cooking pages
- Grilled lemons and limes — One manufacturer grills five halved lemons or limes for four to five minutes; it does not say fresh or frozen.
This page gives no cooking answer of its own. A food does not have one — a cut, at a thickness, in a state, at a loading, in a particular appliance does. Any figure mentioned above is one manufacturer’s, and the page for the cut says which machine, quantity and state it was printed for, or that the manufacturer named no state.