Grilled peas? Top chef Kevin Gillespie's tips for unconventional grilling ideas

At Kevin Gillespie's newly opened Nàdair in Atlanta, the chef honors his ancestry with Scottish fare influenced by rich U.S. culinary regions, including the South.

Nàdair in Scots Gaelic means "nature," which nods to a seasonal menu and open-fire cookery. There's an element of fire in nearly every dish, whether it's local beef grilled over high, direct heat or smoked pork belly, gently embued with the flavors of fire.

That's the No. 1 secret Gillespie wants to pass on to grill cooks at home: There's a whole range of temperatures between "off" and "blazing inferno."

"It's the American ethos in everything we do," Gillespie said. "We tend to want to strike for the jugular when sometimes a tender approach is best."

Creating different heat zones is crucial, especially if you're trying to cook multiple items.

With a basic kettle grill, that's a matter of banking your coals to one side. For a gas grill, it means lowering the temperature of some burners or leaving them off altogether. Gillespie also likes Kudu-brand grills, which have movable grill grates that can lift your food away from, or bring it closer to, the flame.

"People have to realize that a grill has the capacity for a number of cooking techniques," he said. "Yes, you can cook over high, direct heat, which is how most Americans think of grilling. But that's limiting what can be done here."

How to not ruin fish

It's especially important to grill fish with a tender approach since high heat can impart unpleasant flavors and textures to some seafood.

"The protein of most fish can't handle that kind of heat," Gillespie said. "It denatures the protein and causes the albumin to separate."

The liquid protein inside fish, or albumin, can coagulate and get squeezed to the surface as muscle fibers contract. While albumin, or the white stuff you've probably seen on the surface of salmon, can be gooey, it's not bad for you. But it's not particularly appetizing.

The remedy is to cook fish low and slow. Gillespie also recommends brining your fish for 15 minutes in a 7% saline solution, which helps to denature the protein and decreases its ability to separate.

Pat fish dry with paper towels after brining to keep it from steaming and sticking. Apply a very thin layer of fat such as vegetable oil to the fish, not the grate, before you toss it ― gently, please ― onto the grill.

Once your fish is on the grill surface, only flip it once so it doesn't flake apart, and be careful not to overcook.

"Fish has carryover cooking just like meat," Gillespie said. "I remind people you have to anticipate gaining one full temp (in other words, medium to medium-well) in that resting phase. Since grilling is such an effective form of heat transfer, you're going to get more carryover."

Eat your vegetables (and fruit)

Grilling vegetables adds an extra layer of flavor difficult to achieve otherwise. Gillespie particularly loves how snap peas take on a meaty profile.

"It's satiating even for died-in-the-wool carnivores," he said.

It's nearly impossible to cook peas directly on the grill, a task Gillespie relegates to carbon steel perforated pans, which sit directly on the grill and have holes small enough to keep peas inside while still allowing smoke to penetrate. All-metal basket strainers also work in a pinch.

Gillespie also likes grilling beets after steaming or baking them, then peeling them, for a flavor-loaded finish.

"It concentrates the sugars and converts them into something darker, more caramelized, semisweet or semibitter," he said.

Fruit can also be a revelation on the grill, and that's especially the case with watermelon, according to Gillespie.

"That's currently on the menu at Nàdair, and it shocks people," he said.

The key is to dry the sliced fruit well, oil its surface, and then blast it with very high heat, he said.

"You're not concerned about cooking it through," he said. "You want it deeply caramelized almost to bitterness on the exterior."

Meanwhile, the heat concentrates the melon's sugars, rendering what Gillespie calls a "sweet umami bomb."

Grilled fruit can be a stepping stone to dishes that explode with flavor. Grilled peaches impart a richer flavor to peach ice cream or cobbler.

Similarly, cooking berries in a grill pan until they begin to break apart is a perfect first step to deeply flavored cobblers and jams.

"You can let that be your secret," he said. "It adds something greater than the sum of its parts."

When you're done with the grill, it's not done with you

Don't let those coals die completely.

"People don't realize that just because you're done cooking one meal, there isn't an opportunity to use the embers for your next meal," Gillespie said.

After service at Nàdair, cooks bury onions in the still-smoldering cinders overnight. When the coals are cool in the morning, cooks remove the blackened onions.

"Then we give them a gentle squeeze, and out pops a sweet roasted onion with smoky flavor we can turn into sauce," Gillespie said.

Similarly, thick-skinned squash, particularly pie pumpkin, turns sweet and soft when buried in coals.

"You can use that for pumpkin pie, and it's way more flavorful than, god forbid, canned pumpkin," Gillespie said.

Eggplant, coal-roasted until it cracks and starts spitting water, is perfect when pureed to make a baba ganoush-like dip.

Gillespie believes there is essentially no limit to what can be transformed by the power of the grill.

"It unlocks more depth of flavor than you could achieve otherwise," he said. "It's a critical piece to cooking."