Review of Hussey Butchers
This review of Hussey butchers is the first review by our new author: “Steak Boner”, a steak lover so passionate about T-bone steak that he won’t stop eating it until he finds the best T-Bone in London.
Steak Boner makes it to Wapping
I’m on a quest to find out which London butcher has the best T-Bone steak. My First week sees me hit up Hussey Butchers, a traditional butcher in Wapping, East London.
I’d finally made it to Wapping. I somehow survived the lovely up-and-coming neighbourhood of Shadwell intact and google maps had placed me directly in front of… The Hussey Green Grocer!? I felt like someone google troll was having a right laugh at me. But suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I caught red chunks of meat hung from the shop display. I swear, if Heaven had a store front, there would be aged meat hanging from it too. So I joined a small queue forming outside Hussey Butcher eyeing up those gorgeous chunks of Beef.
Hussey Butchers is a family run butcher, with Ian Hussey, the main butcher, serving the community of Wapping with quality meat for over 50 years. The butcher has a broad range of meat, but only sells high quality beef from cattle raised to produce meat (they do not sell meat from ex diary cows).
Hussey Butchers’ T-bone Steak
The butcher counter was stacked with enormous cuts of steak. I asked the butcher if he had any T-Bone steak and he grabbed an enormous rack and carved off a large chunk weighing in at 700gm.
The butcher explained that the steak was from a Hereford cow. This is a breed of cow that came from Hertfordshire in the West Midlands. The Hereford cow, identifiable by its white head and red-brown body, is beef cattle meaning that it is breed specifically to become delicious.
The steak was a medium-light red colour indicating that the cattle was reasonably young (Hussey Butchers tell me that the beef is usually from cows about 2 years of age). The steak was dry-aged (a process of storing the meat in cool temperatures which breaks down the meat and improves taste and tenderness) for 21 days and had a small amount of marbling (little bits of fat throughout the muscle which, when cooked, are supposed to make the steak a bit tastier).
Cooking the T-Bone
Cooking the T-Bone steak can be tough as you’ve got two very different cuts of steak (The Sirloin and Fillet) at two different sizes.
I ended up cooking the steak for about 2 minutes 30 seconds a side and rested it for 4-5 minutes before eating. The result was an excellent looking medium-rare steak.
Eating the T-Bone
The T-bone looked great at all stages on its journey into my mouth. I was about to eat it and I was excited. I started with the Sirloin. The sirloin wasn’t the easiest to cut, but despite that it was quite tender. The sirloin had a slight beefy taste but the taste didn’t hold beyond a bite or two.
The fillet was good, it was pretty tender (though not melt in the mouth) and had a slight taste to it (as much as you can expect from a fillet).
The T-bone disappeared pretty quickly and at no stage was a chore to get through.
Judgement time
All in all this was a pretty good T-Bone steak. Hussey’s rank is a bit of a moot point for now as Hussey Butchers is the first stop on my glorious T-bone tour of London. But check out my hit list of steakhouses and keep an eye on the leader board as I continue to visit more steak houses.
Don’t forget, if you know a great butcher that I should check out let me know about it in the comments section below.
Wapping
