Eggs Benedict

For years I've been nervous about making a hollandaise from scratch, but it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. Honestly, how can you go wrong with a whole stick of butter and four egg yolks? That's right, there are only five ingredients, making it a pretty cheap way to clog your arteries. Poached eggs, on the other hand, I have had a demonstrably poor history with. I finally found that bringing the water to a high boil before reducing it does the trick for me. I threw some swiss cheese and prosciutto on a couple pieces of multi-grain toast and broiled it til crispy, and here are my poached eggs on top with cracked pepper:

I really don't think you can use too much vinegar when poaching; worst case scenario, your eggs taste vinegary, and what's wrong with that?

A slice of good cheese makes this hearty winter breakfast just that much richer, last time we used smoked gouda and it really blew our minds. In this case, the prosciutto and swiss worked well together to provide a little bite.

Fresh squeezed lemon juice is the real kicker in the hollandaise. It had a perfect tang that nearly made you forget it was suspended in a sauce made of pure cholesterol. I spent about ten minutes whisking vigorously while the egg yolks, melted butter and lemon juice were heated as high as possible without actually cooking the egg, which would result in chunky hollandaise (bleh). As a result of the constant whisking you introduce a lot of air to the sauce which makes it nice and fluffy. Here you can see swirls of butter and yolk:

Using four yolks makes a bit more sauce than two people need, but I'm wary of reheating something that's never really fully cooked to begin with, so we just use the toast to soak up the extra.

Now that I've made some minor changes on a classic recipe, I would like to try some even more exotic variations. Any ideas?

-Bryan