American, with help, eats starters of fowl roasted like a chicken (6)
I believe the answer is:
afraid
'chicken' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'american with help eats starters of fowl roasted' is the wordplay.
'american' becomes 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'help' becomes 'aid' (synonyms).
'eats' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'starters of' suggests taking the first letters.
The initial letters of 'fowl roasted' is 'fr'.
'a'+'aid'='aaid'
'aaid' enclosing 'fr' is 'AFRAID'.
'like a' is the link.
(Other definitions for afraid that I've seen before include "Fearful, anxious" , "Filled with concern" , "Fearful and timid" , "Alarmed, fearful" , "feeling scared" .)