Steamed Lobster with Drawn Butter

Two opinions, and they're the whole recipe.

Steam, don't boil. Boiling waterlogs the meat and leaches flavor into a pot of water you're going to pour down the sink. Steam cooks it gently, the shell holds what's inside it, and the meat comes out firmer and more concentrated.

Buy small. One to one and a quarter pounds. Smaller lobsters are sweeter and more tender, and the big ones people pay extra for are older, coarser and tougher. The premium is for the spectacle.

Drawn butter, with Old Bay

Melt the butter slowly over low heat without stirring. The white milk solids settle to the bottom; the clear gold butter is what you want. Spoon it off, or pour carefully and leave the last of it behind.

Half a teaspoon of Old Bay stirred in, and use salted butter or add a good pinch. The salt is the part that matters: it makes the lobster read sweeter, the way salt does on a melon or in a caramel. Without it the butter is fat and the sweetness sits flat.

The Old Bay works from the other direction, a little savory and a little heat against sweet meat.

Lemon on the side rather than in the butter, so people take as much as they want.

If it's not right

• Tough: overcooked, and a minute matters at this size.
• Watery: boiled rather than steamed, or the lid came off.
• Hard to get out of the shell: undercooked, which is rarer than the opposite.
• Bland: the water wasn't salted enough. It seasons through the shell more than you'd expect.