Constituent of food to hold aloft on a dish (4)
I believe the answer is:
bran
'constituent of food' is the definition.
'bran' can be an answer for 'food' (bran is a kind of food). I'm not certain of the 'constituent of' bit.
'hold aloft on a dish' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'a' could be 'an' and 'an' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bran that I've seen before include "Health food" , "DOG" , "Separated grain husks" , "Pieces of grain husk after milling" , "Type of roughage" .)