When I was a 1950's teenager growing up in Long Island NY, I remember
my mother occasionally going into NYC for dinner at various foreign
restaurants. One night, she came home very excited about an appetizer
she called "Gohoctis" or something that sounds similar. A waiter gave
her the recipe which she made and it was amazing! Then I learned to
make it and still make it to this day.
Gohoctis turned out to be a variant on the hundreds to thousands of
recipes for Steak Tartare. The recipe calls for about a pound of very
lean double ground beefsteak thoroughly mixed with the yolk of one egg.
Then the following ingredients were added:
one minced yellow onion
8 minced large garlic cloves
1/2 Tbs grated horseradish
1 Tbs sharp pot mustard
chopped green olives
1 can flat anchovy fillets chopped
Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce
flavored bread crumbs or wheat germ or bulghar added to thicken the mix
to pate consistency.
This mixture is left in the refrigerator to "mature" in a covered glass
or metal bowl for 12 to 24 hours. It is served uncooked either cold or
at room temperature on crackers or whole grain bread garnished with
capers or thinly sliced red onion and lemon juice. The anchovy and
garlic flavor predominates in this version.
I've searched Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Russian, Greek, Turkish
and Arabic cuisine for some raw beef dish with a name similar to
"Gohoctis"; nothing. I Googled Gohoctis and all phonetically equivalent
spellings I could think of. All I turned up was some weird stuffing for
turkey.
My guess was that the restaurant making this dish made up the name
Gohoctis rather than calling it Steak Tartare so as to avoid the yuck
factor some people have about eating raw beef and egg yolks.
So has anyone ever heard of this dish or something sounding like it?
I'd love to know if there really is some ethnic dish with this name and
get the original recipe.