While the French and other cultures have devised elaborate and delicious methods for cooking lobsters, one of the simplest remains the best: boiling. While boiling often results in dry, cottony flesh, this is usually due to overcooking. Most books recommend about 20 minutes, but here a 2-pound lobster is cooked for 4 minutes, just long enough to cook the flesh and leave it moist and delicate. There is, however, one result of this process that some consider a curse and others a blessing: the coral inside female lobsters remains raw and dark green—almost black—from the relatively low internal temperature. While some cooks might be tempted to discard the coral, keep in mind that it’s the tastiest part of the lobster. It also lends itself to making an impeccable lobster sauce. You’re also likely to encounter tomalley inside the lobsters—pale, green, amorphous—which is delicious and can also be used in the sauce, although it can dampen the color somewhat. If color is of extreme importance, leave the tomalley out.

Beurre blanc and hollandaise work especially well as a base sauce for incorporating the coral, but the coral can also be worked into any number of seafood-based sauces such as veloutés, and even hot mayonnaise emulsions.