Key Lime Butter Beans

📝 Notes: Also known as: Cracker Butter Beans · Miz Kathi's Key Lime Beans The concept: Classic: smoky butter beans. Vector: Substitution (key lime juice replaces the finishing splash of vinegar or hot sauce). Acid, pickle, and citrus are as Southern as butter — key lime is the one Florida owns outright, and it cuts the richness without dulling the smoke. Hero ingredient: Fresh key lime juice and zest, both added at the very end. Plating: Serve in a small bowl with a little pot liquor, zest on top. Pro upgrade: candy a few key lime zest strips for garnish on a Magnolia Room plated version. Prep efficiency: base beans hold well on the steam table; add lime juice per-pan at the pass, not to the whole batch, so it stays bright. Cross-utilization: same smoke juice and stock base as Butter Beans and Mr. Jimmy's Butter Bean Soup. Failure modes: adding lime juice too early and holding on the steam table cooks off the brightness within the hour — always finish per-batch. Scaling: At 4x: liquid ratio holds. At 10x: cook in two pots; a single pot this size takes too long to come to temperature and beans on the bottom overcook before the top is hot.