Cook starts to appreciate making a nice pasty (7)
I believe the answer is:
anaemic
'pasty' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'cook starts to appreciate making a nice' is the wordplay.
'cook' is an anagram indicator.
'starts to' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letters of 'appreciate making' is 'am'.
'am'+'a'+'nice'='amanice'
'amanice' is an anagram of 'ANAEMIC'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for anaemic that I've seen before include "Bloodless, sickly" , "uninspiring" , "Lacking vigour as in a cinema" , "Pale, sickly" , "bloody poor" .)