Red or black stuff around piece of meat (9)
I believe the answer is:
cochineal
'red' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'black stuff around piece of meat' is the wordplay.
'black stuff' becomes 'coal'.
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'piece of meat' becomes 'chine' (meat around an animal's backbone).
'coal' placed around 'chine' is 'COCHINEAL'.
'or' is the link.
(Other definitions for cochineal that I've seen before include "Red food colouring" , "Red colour" , "Scarlet dye - in a cloche (anag)" , "Scarlet food dye" , "Red food dye (from beetles)" .)