Boiled Lobsters with Dipping Sauce

To prepare sauce: Bring wine, lemon juice and shallot to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook until the shallot is softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add butter and salt and whisk until the butter is melted.

Combine water and flour in a small bowl and whisk into the sauce. Cook, whisking, until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm while you cook your lobsters.

To cook lobster: Fill a lobster pot, stockpot or canning pot about three-quarters full with water; bring to a boil over high heat. Leaving the rubber bands around the claws and wearing a thick glove, grasp one lobster at a time around the body and add to the water, claws first. When all the lobsters are in, cover the pot and start timing--don't wait for the water to return to a boil. Cook 8 minutes for a 1-pound lobster. For larger lobsters, add 2 more minutes for each 1/4 pound. Remove the lobsters to a colander; let excess water drain before transferring to a serving plate. Serve each lobster with about 2 tablespoons dipping sauce. (Refrigerate any extra dipping sauce for up to 3 days; reheat before using.)

To shell lobsters: Grasp a claw near the body. With a firm twist, remove from the body. Repeat with the second claw. Crack through the claw shell using a lobster cracker or kitchen shears. Remove the meat with a small fork. Hold the body in one hand and firmly grasp the tail in the other; twist and gently pull the tail from the body. (Discard the body.) The green/gray "goop" on the tail meat is called tomalley. Technically edible (and delicious to some), it functions as a filter and accumulates contaminants from the ocean--it's best to skip eating it. Cut through the underside of the tail shell with kitchen shears or use lobster crackers to crack the shell. Remove the meat from the shell with a fork. (One 1-pound lobster yields about 1 cup, or 4.5 ounces, cooked meat.)