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, and 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, so 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.