Crossword Genius

Baked dish containing cut of beef and hard pate mixture is only a very brief hit (5,2,3,3)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

flash in the pan

'only a very brief hit' is the definition.

'baked dish containing cut of beef and hard pate mixture' is the wordplay.
'baked dish' becomes 'flan' (I've seen this before).
'containing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'cut of beef' becomes 'shin' (I've seen this before).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'hard pate mixture' becomes 'thepa' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'shin'+'thepa'='shinthepa'
'flan' enclosing 'shinthepa' is 'FLASH IN THE PAN'.

'is' is the link.

(Other definitions for flash in the pan that I've seen before include "One-off success" , "Nine-days wonder" , "First and only success" , "Failure, after initial promise" , "Fine hash plant (anag) - short-lived success" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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