Recipe: Pam Anderson's Brined Grilled Lemon Chicken

Here is a recipe from USA Weekend.

This month's cook:
Pam Anderson is the author of The Perfect Recipe: Getting It Right Every Time -- Making Our Favorite Dishes The Absolutely Best They Can Be (Houghton Mifflin, $27), which recently won a 1999 Julia Child Cookbook Award. She is the former executive editor of Cook's Illustrated magazine, and in that role, tested each recipe literally dozens of times.

Recipe: Grilled Lemon Chicken
Total prep and cooking time: 50 minutes

1 cup kosher salt
2 whole chickens (about 3 1/2 pounds each),each cut into 8 pieces, or 5 1/2 pounds of chicken parts
Ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
4 large cloves garlic, minced very fine
1 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 5 lemons)
1 1/2 tsps. dried thyme

Serves: 8 (2 pieces per serving).
Per serving:
489 calories
48g protein
30g fat (14g saturated)
3.5g carbohydrates
0g fiber
sodium cannot be determined.

Preparation for Grilled Lemon Chicken

Dissolve salt in 8 cups water in large glass or ceramic bowl or several gallon-size zipper-lock plastic bags. Add chicken parts (seal zipper-lock bag, if using) and refrigerate about 1 1/2 hours. Remove chicken from brine, rinse well, dry well with paper towels and sprinkle with pepper.

Build a medium-hot fire. (If using charcoal, spread coals over only 2/3 of grill.)

Heat olive oil and garlic in small saucepan over low heat, and when garlic just starts to sizzle, remove from heat. Mix with lemon juice and thyme in large, shallow non-reactive pan, such as a 13- by 9-inch baking dish. Set aside.

Place chicken, skin side down, on rack over hot coals. Grill, pulling chicken over to cool side of grill if flare-ups occur or if chicken starts darkening too quickly. Turn chicken and move it around to ensure even cooking, until chicken is a spotted dark golden brown; 15-17 minutes for legs, thighs and wings, 18-20 minutes for breasts (expect slightly longer cooking times if gas grilling). As chicken parts are done, roll them in the pan of lemon sauce to coat completely.

Return chicken parts to cool side of grill (or reduce heat to medium if cooking on gas); grill over low heat so lemon sauce flavors meat, about 5 minutes longer, turning each piece and brushing it with sauce once more. Return chicken to pan and roll in lemon sauce once again. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Note: If cooking both the chicken and the hamburgers on a charcoal grill, start cooking the chicken first. While it's on the grill, heat another chimney full of coals. Once the chicken comes off, remove the grill rack, add the new hot coals and cook the burgers.

Tips: For perfect chicken:
For chicken that tastes wonderfully seasoned throughout, soak the parts in salted water 11/2 hours before grilling.

For bright, fresh lemon flavor, don't marinate or baste the chicken. Instead, roll the fully cooked chicken in a lemon-oil mixture,
then return it to the grill for a few minutes.

Build a medium-hot fire on one side of the grill, leaving the other side free as a safe area in case flare-ups occur.