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Remove heart and head of salamander, then slice up gland (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

adrenal

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'gland' is the definition.
(adrenal is a kind of gland)

'remove heart and head of salamander then' is the wordplay.
'remove heart' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (I've seen 'remove heart of' mean this).
'head of salamander then' becomes 'renal' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'and' with its centre taken out is 'ad'.
'ad'+'renal'='ADRENAL'

'slice up' is the link.
This may not be correct. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for adrenal that I've seen before include "Relating to glands near the kidneys" , "close to the kidneys!" , "Relating to certain glands" , "Glandular" , "Gland that secretes the fight or flight hormone" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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