Foods & cuts · Romaine lettuce

Halved romaine lettuce

One to two minutes on the cut face. The shortest cook in the BBQHQ catalogue, and barely a cook at all — it is a char applied to something still raw.

What it is

Form: Cut vegetable
Typical weight: 150–350 g
Typical thickness: 50–80 mm
Cut: Not a cut of anything

Why it behaves as it does

North Dakota State gives one to two minutes for a whole head. This is the clearest case in the catalogue of a food where 'cooked' is the wrong frame entirely: the interior stays cold and crisp on purpose, and the entire result is scorch on one face. It is included because a reader who tries to grill lettuce for the ten minutes most vegetables want will produce something inedible, and because the model should be able to express a food whose endpoint is measured in seconds.

When is it done?

Food-safety endpoint

BBQHQ holds no food-safety rule for this food. We are not showing you another jurisdiction’s figure in its place — check your national food-safety authority.

Texture endpoint — how you actually know

Charred face, cold crisp centre

One face is scorched and the interior is untouched. That is the finished state, not an intermediate one — grilled lettuce is a char applied to a raw leaf.

How long it takes

Halved romaine lettuce, grilled

Estimated cooking window

1 min–2 min

Low confidence

Why this is a range, not a number

Cookers hold temperature imperfectly
Individual animals and pieces differ

Cook to the endpoint, not to the clock. The window tells you when to start checking.

What this rests on

BBQHQ publishes a window for this cook.

Observations: 1
Documents: 1
Publishers timing this cook: 1

North Dakota State University Extension

Why confidence is not higher

At least one source does not state the cooker temperature.

How the sources were combined

ONE PUBLISHER, STATED AS A TOTAL. North Dakota State gives 1–2 minutes and no grill temperature, saying only that the time depends on the heat of the grill. BBQHQ publishes it as it stands and does not manufacture a second voice for it.

What makes the window as wide as it is

Cookers hold temperature imperfectly
Individual animals and pieces differ

When it goes wrong

Burnt outside, underdone inside: Vegetables charred outside and hard in the middle — 2 distinguishable causes.

Afterwards

Cooling, keeping and reheating what is left is general guidance for barbecue leftovers. Neither UK authority publishes anything specific to halved romaine lettuce, and BBQHQ does not invent a distinction they do not make.