Hollandaise

I think that one of my favorite things on this earth is a good hollandaise sauce. I first fell in love while eating it on top of eggs benni cooked in the middle of the grand canyon. Two of my favorite things combined, Eating and Rafting!! It was pretty much destiny. However, that hollandaise was made from a packet, which sparked my interest, how DO you make hollandaise from scratch? My answer didn't really come until I started school and one day my chef demo'd white asparagus with hollandaise! At last! So here it is folks and I gotta say it is easy but it takes some practice to get consistently good at it. So practice every once in a while, but not too much because it is about 90% butter : )

Ingredients
3 egg yolks
8 oz. clarified butter(if you don't want to clarify butter, using whole melted butter works fine too)
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2 sprigs of thyme
6 black peppercorns crushed
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white wine (optional)

Method
There's a few different ways to cook the hollandaise. I use a double boiler because I have one at home. At school we use a metal bowl held over a small pot of boiling water. Use your imagination. Some chefs can do it over direct heat but I'm not that skilled or cool enough to do that yet. So I stick to what I know. First, combine water, wine, thyme, and peppercorns in a small pot and simmer until there's only a little liquid left. You're basically wanting to flavor the liquid with the thyme and pepper. Put yolks in a bowl and whisk till airy then add water and lemon juice, and whisk until frothy. Place bowl or pan over boiling water and whisk quickly, remove the pan every so often so the eggs don't curdle. Whisk until the yolks and liquid begin to thicken slightly. Then start adding the butter slowly, a little at a time. ONLY add more butter after the previous addition is properly incorporated. When all the butter is in, the sauce should be thick and creamy. If it looks like it's separated or is chunky, then it probably broke and it's ruined (there's a possibility to save it but just don't break it in the first place. If you really wanna know how to fix it after it breaks, just ask) but add some salt and pepper to taste and you're done!! Enjoy!