I adore a good barbecue sauce. One that sticks to your fingers and cheeks while balancing sweet, spicy, smoky, and tangy flavors. When I stumbled across a 7-minute recipe for Chipotle-Maple Barbecue sauce in the June 2013 issue of Food and Wine magazine, I thought it had potential. And with chipotles in adobo and maple syrup in the cabinet (two ingredients that I always keep on hand), it didn’t take much convincing for me to whip up a batch for grilled chicken.
A couple of years ago, my grilling underwent a giant shift. I learned about brining and gone were the days of dried out chicken breasts and cardboard-like pork tenderloins. Soaking the meat in a liquid with salt and, often some sugar, for just a few minutes before cooking transforms the end product keeping it juicy and succulent despite the dry and scorching heat of the grill. The discovery of brining was a game-changer for me and since learning about it, I have always gone to the trouble of this extra step.
