Fruit
Pineapple
High enough in sugar and acid to caramelise properly, and the only fruit here charted both grilled and dried.
What it does in fast-moving hot air
Pineapple is high in both sugar and acid, and the acid keeps the flesh firm while the sugar caramelises, which is an unusually forgiving combination. On direct heat the cut faces darken and the fruit holds its shape, and the published instruction to turn it two or three times is about getting even colour rather than even cooking. Dehydrated, the same sugar concentration is what turns the slices leathery rather than brittle, and the fibrous core is the part that never softens either way.
Why the cut matters
Pineapple appears in two different charts at two completely different temperatures — seven to ten minutes on a grill plate, or six to eight hours at 60°C to dehydrate — which makes it a useful demonstration that a food does not have a cooking time.
Cooking pages
- Grilled pineapple — Seven to ten minutes, turned two or three times.
- Dried pineapple — Six to eight hours at 60°C, and the slices come out chewy rather than crisp.
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.