Do not recurse

example.js

var https = require('https');
 
var limit = 2 * 1000;
 
function fetch(cb) {
    var req = https.request('https://url', function(res) {
        var text = '';
 
        res.on('data', function(chunk) {
            text += chunk;
        });
 
        res.on('end', function() {
            var body;
 
            try {
                body = JSON.parse(text);
            } catch (err) {
                return cb(err);
            }
 
            cb(null, body);
        });
    });
 
    req.end();
 
    req.on('error', function(err) {
        cb(err);
    });
}
 
function run() {
    var start = new Date();
 
    fetch(function(err, res) {
        handle error
        process res
 
        var end = new Date();
        var diff = end - start;
 
        if (diff < limit) {
            setTimeout(run, limit - diff);
        } else {
            process.nextTick(run);
        }
    });
}
 
run();