Edit: I updated the recipe below.

Wow. It’s been a long time. I can only apologise; I’ve been a little overwhelmed with projects, including Blood & Smoke for Vampire: The Requiem, a story for When Will You Rage 2, and a whole bunch of other stuff. That’s no excuse for not posting here, though.

So what’s been going on? Rich is waiting on the third round of W20 PoD proofs from DriveThru, and is getting the interior of the Deluxe W20 to match his color notes. Both the Deluxe and Heavy Metal covers are being prepped for proofing. As always, the best place to look for Deluxe W20 info is the Kickstarter update page.

In case you haven’t seen, we’ve launched the Kickstarter for the Deluxe Exalted 3rd Edition. It hit its goal in 18 minutes, which is just insane. Naturally, it’s racking up the stretch goals.

Speaking of stretch goals, I’ve not forgotten the W20 stretch goals. We’ve got the first drafts of White Howlers coming in soon, and I’ll be sure to get some great excerpts up here for you. I do want to get a bit more of a conversation going about what’s in the book, but I’d much rather the writers do their thing without me constantly leaning over their shoulder. Hopefully, I’ll be able to bring a bit more of a dialogue here with White Howlers.

But what about the W20 Cookbook? Glad you asked! Below the cut is the introduction and recipe for the Bone Gnawers, ripped right from my current draft.

Bone Gnawers

Rat’s chosen tribe don’t mess around when it comes to food. They go in for big pots and bold flavors, and when you see what they’ve got to work with you soon understand why. While many Bone Gnawers can make a meal out of almost anything, it doesn’t mean they necessarily want to. American Bone Gnawers favor dishes like jambalaya, chicken and dumplings, or a big old pot of five-alarm chilli, but I went a bit further afield to discover something that represents the tribe while introducing new flavors to American and European Garou.

I’ve adapted this recipe from one I learned from a sept of Bone Gnawers in Ghana. They use a couple of old stewing hens for both the stock and for their meat, and make enough to feed twenty or thirty Garou and Kin at a time. Doing it their way can take four or five hours, I’ve condensed it down to something that most people can cook in an hour and a half. It scales well — if you have a big enough pot, double the ingredients and cook each stage for 45 minutes to an hour.

Chicken and Peanut Curry

Serves 8 (leftovers will keep in a freezer for several months).
Prep time 15 mins
Cook time 1hr 10mins

Variations

Vegetarian/Vegan — Use vegetable stock in place of chicken stock. Swap out the chicken legs for a similar weight of vegetarian chicken breast or seitan; don’t fry it first, but add it to the pot with the sweet potato and peppers.

Note: Since a few of the recipes include seitan as a vegetarian/vegan meat replacement, the W20 Cookbook will include a recipe for it in the appendix, along with a list of equipment and common terms.

Ingredients

1L (2pt) chicken stock (broth), hot
240g (¾ jar; 8oz) smooth peanut butter
2 onions
3 tbsp sunflower oil
3-inch piece of ginger
1 tsp cayenne pepper
3 tsp coriander (cilantro) seeds
3 tsp cumin seeds
2 scotch bonnet chillies
2 bay leaves
800g (2 cans) chopped tomatoes, with juice
150g (1 cup) chopped peanuts
400g red lentils
4 chicken legs
4 sweet potatoes (batata)
2 red peppers
Large handful coriander (cilantro)
400g (2 cups) basmati or long grain rice, to serve.

Method

1. Pour the hot chicken stock over the peanut butter and stir to dissolve. Heat a dry skillet over a high flame and toast the cumin and coriander seeds for a couple of minutes until they release their aroma. Remove from the pan and crush to a powder in a pestle and mortar. Peel and mince the ginger. Take the seeds out of the chillies and chop. Thinly slice both the onions.
2. Cut the chicken into thighs and drumsticks. Leave the skin on and the bones in. Season with salt and pepper, then fry in a skillet in a tablespoon of the oil. You want a medium-high heat, enough to brown the skin for flavour but not to cook the chicken through.
3. Fry the onions in a very large pan in the oil. Once the onions are soft and translucent (about 5 minutes), add the ginger, cayenne, coriander and cumin, chillies, and bay leaves. Cook for another couple of minutes.
4. Add the tomatoes, peanut stock, peanuts, and lentils to the pan, stir well, then stir in the chicken. Put the lid on, and simmer for 30 minutes. Give it a stir every 5 minutes or so to make sure that the peanut butter doesn’t stick to the pan.
5. Peel the sweet potato and cut into 2cm (¾ inch) chunks. Take the seeds out of the peppers and cut them into similar-sized chunks as well. Add to the pot along with most of the chopped coriander, and simmer for another 30 minutes with the lid on. Keep stirring frequently, and if the sauce looks too thick, add some water to thin it down.
6. Cook the rice according to how you would normally; if you don’t know how, look on the packet. Too many varieties for me to specify here.
7. Once the big pot’s done, sprinkle the rest of the coriander over the top and serve with the rice. Make sure everyone gets a piece of chicken.