Tyrolean Style Liver (Tiroler Leber)

There are many variations to recipes of this name, "Leber nach Tiroler Art;" that is, "Liver, Tirol Style" (literally, "Liver after (or, according to) Tirol Type"), or sometimes it is called, "Tiroler Leber." It is made in Austria and Bavaria.* This is really a stew, and a very good one, at that. Some fix it with cream instead of sour cream, but others use no cream or sour cream at all, while some add lemon juice, but no wine, and there are other variations too. Some serve it with polenta, which Austro-German culture got from the Italians.** To me, the great sauce of this dish requires mashed potatoes, but I'm a lover of mashed potatoes; so to me, chocolate ice cream requires mashed potatoes. Well, that's not true... actually, strawberry ice cream. 

Ingredients (for 4 to 6 servings):

1 1/2 pounds liver (calves, beef or pork) cut into bite sized pieces
flour for coating the liver
3 tablespoons butter + 3 tablespoons olive oil
5 thick cut slices smoked bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups beef stock
2/3 cup white wine
1 heaping teaspoon dried marjoram leaves (or you can use oregano)
3 tablespoons (drained) capers, whole or chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt (or you can omit this, if the beef stock is salty)
1 teaspoon black pepper
flour and water for thickener, if desired
1/2 cup sour cream (reduced fat type is fine)

Coat the cut liver pieces with flour, set aside. In a skillet over medium heat, add the oil and butter. Add the bacon and the onion, cook, stirring the mixture around fairly often, until the onion is softened. Add the liver and cook for a few minutes before adding the beef stock, the wine and the marjoram. Stir well to mix. Reduce heat to simmer the stew. When the liver is cooked through, add the capers, the pepper and the salt (if using), stir well. (If you want the sauce to be thickened, as I like, mix some flour and water and gradually stir it into the stew. Let the stew simmer for a minute or two.) Remove the stew from the heat and stir in the sour cream until it is fully mixed in.

* Tyrol/Tirol is a region in the Alps divided between Austria and Italy since the end of World War One. Long a part of the Old German Empire, then of the Austrian Empire, and then of Austria-Hungary, the southern part of the region, the South Tirol (German: Südtirol, Italian: Alto Adige) was given to Italy after World War One, which caused bitter feelings by the majority German population for decades (it should be noted, parts of the region had substantial Italian minorities or even local majorities).  

** Of course, the Italians live just south of the German speaking areas. "Polenta," known to most Americans as simply, "cornmeal," is ground corn/maize, a food taken to Europe from the New World, along with some other new food products for those times, like potatoes and tomatoes, for instance. In German the word "Polenta" is used as the standard word, but there is also "Plentn" in dialect, as well as "Sterz" in some southern dialect (more for the cooked type, either as a kind of solidly cooked "bread/cake," or as a kind of porridge). German also uses "Maismehl" (maize meal) for the uncooked ground meal.   

Tyrolean Style Liver with mashed potatoes and salad....

WORD HISTORY: 
Brook-There is more than one word of this spelling in English (the noun is unrelated and is from a totally different source), and this is the verb "brook," with the modern meaning of "to tolerate, bear something unpleasant." It is distantly related to "fruit," a word of Latin derivation borrowed by English, which originally meant "an enjoyment," which then progressed to the modern meaning, "produce of trees or bushes" (from the notion, "a food that is enjoyed"). It goes back to Indo European "bhrug," with the notion of, "to enjoy, to make use of for enjoyment." This gave Old Germanic "brukanan," with the same meanings. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "brucan," meaning, "to enjoy, to use, to eat and to enjoy food;" which led to the meanings, "to digest," and for the food, "to be digestible;" thus, "to tolerate (stomach wise);" thus, to the later more general sense of "tolerate, bear something," the meaning that survived into modern English. In more modern times, at least in the U.S., it is often used in the negative sense, "I can't brook his drinking and gambling." Other Germanic relatives: German has "gebrauchen" (to use) and "brauchen," (to have need of, to have the need to use something), Low German Saxon has "bruken" (to need for use, to use), West Frisian "brûke" (to use), Dutch "bruiken" (to use, to make use of). Apparently a form did not survive in North Germanic, but the word was not just in West Germanic, as Gothic, which was East Germanic, had "brukjan" (to enjoy). Danish "bruge" (to use), Norwegian "bruke" (to use) and Swedish "bruka" (to become accustomed to, to till land; that is, make land ready for use, but the word's former general meaning was, "make use of"), all came by borrowing from Low German.