What did you cook tonight?

Special request from daughter for her bday weekend - butter chicken. I make the Serious Eats version, but grill the chicken thigh pieces instead of broiling them. It’s a little pricey upfront to buy everything (I didn’t have Kala Namak or fenugreek leaves laying around), but subsequent cooks are pretty cheap. Double portion below!




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You got chops beyond chops!

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Love Indian food! :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

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Yesterday’s Key Lime Pie.
I had to do a last minute substitute for the crust, because my graham crackers were so old and tasted very off. I used pretzels instead, and it came out great.

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My only Achilles heel with sweet foods is key lime pie.

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I had to work yesterday, look at cars with my daughter and pick up stuff from store to send back to Auburn. So a bit thrown together Hamburgers and hot dogs with crinkle fries. That is a fried green tomato on the top layer which was a good addition. Bun was a sesame brioche but I did the upside down slice trick.

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Andrew,

Great minds! My daughter also requested butter chicken, which for her is a way out of left field request. I too chargrilled my chicken after an overnight marination. Basmati with chutney, as well!

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It’s hard to resist.

Upside down trick for the bun?

A proper key lime pie is more tart than sweet. It also has a pastry crust and meringue and starts with fresh, ripe, yellow key limes. If you have good fresh limes, the flavor of graham crackers covers up the delicate, nuanced lime flavors.

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Agreed on the tartness. But that also requires making it at home. I assume you agree?

I make key lime pie with much more lime juice than any recipe I’ve ever seen, and presumably much more than would be financially-viable for any commercial business.

Interesting take on the pastry crust, I may have to try that. Although another virtue of the graham cracker crust is that it is beyond easy. (Especially when the squeezing of all the limes requires so much labor)

Tends to hold together better. Structural integrity. As the bottom bun is thinner, it absorbs more juices and disintegrates faster. Turn upside down you have the thicker top bun on the bottom. Doesn’t fall apart as quickly and compresses.

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I’ve never had a key lime pie at a store or restaurant that comes anywhere close to my mom’s or her mom’s made from key limes from trees in the yards of my grandparents and other family members in Miami Beach. You have a good point that the labor alone involved in producing this kind of pie would be ruinous, even if one can get access to ripe, fresh limes.

A local international market has Mexican limes that sometimes are at least partially yellow, have pretty good flavor, and make a good pie, though the work of juicing them is even harder than with fully ripe limes. Unfortunately, all of my family in Miami Beach who had key lime trees in their yards have passed on, so Mexican limes are about as good as I can get.

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You can all send your key lime pies to me and I’ll judge them unbiased. I promise to eat them all and leave no leftovers, take honest notes and stagger the pieces between pies, and taste them blind before reveal etc. :lime:

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I’m sure that was special. I’ve never had key limes so fresh to the source.

For years I mail ordered key limes from a Florida fruit stand that has also been a good source of tropical fruit grown in FL.

But, if I’m being honest, the addition of the egg yolk and the condensed milk does take away some of the nuances. So this past year I started using whatever limes I can buy here, often bigger and juicier and so much easier than the key limes, and the result is still pretty delicious. (Frankly, the core concept of citrus, egg yolk and condensed milk is tasty with any citrus you like!)

The Brian Lagerstrom YT channel’s recent vid is key lime pie and he makes some interesting takes on fresh vs bottled etc.

I checked out the video and he completely misses the point. The pucker factor he derides is what a true key lime pie should have. I’ll add that the Nellie & Joe’s juice in the plastic bottle found in most supermarkets likely isn’t even key lime juice. The ingredients list “Key West lime juice,” not “Key Lime juice,” and they have a different product labeled as 100% Key Lime juice. Having juiced hundreds of fresh, ripe key limes, I can attest that Nellie & Joe’s Key West lime juice doesn’t taste like them.

I think the bigger question you’re failing to address is… can you sous vide a key lime pie? Asking for a friend.

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Only if you then dry it with a fan.

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I’m not sure if I actually have had “real” key lime pie.
Ive had some in restaurants, but not so sure they have been made with actual key limes.