I've zapped chix (amount of time depending on the cut) before grilling, so the final product gets thoroughly cooked.

Please describe.

get the chicken to sear in the juices. I have been grilling them on the gas grill for years, and would say there is not much mess that way.

Can you explain the "mess" you refer to?

Put them in a steamer for about 10 minutes and then finish them on the grill.

the grill with alum. foil, but there is always a wet, gloppy mess when I'm through.

Bonus-place pan in fridge at a slight angle. After cooling dispose of solidified fat and save the smaltz which is the best base in the world for a soup or stock.

You need very high heat to sear them. Not moderately high heat, but as high as it will go. In reality, the electric grill isn't the best choice, even though that's what I use these days. At the very least, use the highest setting on your grill.

grill, so I thought that would mean moderate heat on electric grill. Next time I will try high heat. If that doesn't work, I'll try the suggestion of steaming for a few min. prior to grillling.

Thanks all!

The reason is that fat contains a high water content and the water will cool the meat as it evaporates. That's why bacon takes a relatively long time to crisp. Most of the water in the fat must render out before the Maillard reaction can occur.

So the trick is to render out most of the fat on the skins first, then hit them with heat that's high enough to cause browning. You can certainly do this with very high heat all at once, but it leaves you with a very small window between browning and burning.

The skin will brown nicely as long as the heat is high enough. The fat itself will either render out or crisp up nicely. Think about baking a full turkey. It's common to smear butter all over the skin -- a fat -- and many cooks baste it during the cooking. And the turkey skin browns up beautifully.

I've myself never had a problem with the chicken meat burning.

Even an electric grill can easily reach temperatures above 500F, and other types of grills can go beyond that. Baking a full turkey takes hours and is done at lower temperatures, but the moisture still has to render out of the fat before browning will occur. You can brown the skin of a turkey with a butane torch at well over 1,000F, which is exactly the way television commercials and magazines often do it simply for presentation. However, there's a very narrow window before the skin will burn. In all of these instances the moisture content must go down before the surface temperature will rise enough to caramelize the sugars, which is what browning is.

The way I bake a turkey is to cook it at a lower temperature until it is almost done and then finish it as high as my oven will go. That way the moisture renders out of the skin during cooking and will brown up nicely at the end. I never have to baste the turkey.

I don't think my electric grill gets that hot, but I've never tried to measure the temperature. It does seem as if it does not get as hot as a gas grill -- I've never used charcoal -- and I do like the convenience of being able to grill inside, especially in the winter.

And yes, temperature makes a huge difference whenever we cook. Getting that part of it right is probably half of what makes the cooking good. The rest involves the actual ingredients.