Steve wrote:

My interest was peaked when I saw a a piece on a NY baker who makes
key lime pies without cooking the filling at all Any comercial food
manufacturer will have alot of people waiting in line to sue them if
they even think they got salmonella from their product, there must be
a point at which this is safe. I was just curious if anyone knew the
answer.

Traditional Key lime pies aren't baked. Used to be that all the
ingredients were separate. Now we use sweetened condensed milk.

The combination of the highly acidic juice and the sugar is
bacteriostatic. The thickening happens because of the denaturing of
the protein.

Here's a key lime pie we used to serve in our restaurants. We used
real Key limes - little yellow ones - but the green ones will work
fine, as well.

Crust:
1 3/4 cups graham crackers, crushed
1 stick butter (4 ounces)
Heat oven to 350F. Make a graham cracker crust with crushed crackers
and butter. Press into pie pan and bake for about 8 minutes. Let cool.

Filling:
1 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon grated lime zest
1/2 cup fresh lime juice (2 or 3 green limes)
3 tablespoons tequila
1/4 teaspoon salt
Whisk together all filling ingredients and let rest for about 5
minutes to thicken. Pour into pie shell and chill for at least 2 hours.

Garnish:
whipped cream (with a dash of lemon oil added)
grated lime zest

Pastorio