Contentious issue about a stew and the skin of tomato (3,6)
I believe the answer is:
hot potato
'contentious issue' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a stew and the skin of tomato' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'a' is found in the answer.
'stew' could be 'hotpot' (I've seen this before) and 'hotpot' is present in the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is found in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'about' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for hot potato that I've seen before include "controversial question" , "Troublesome situation for spicy spud" , "Situation likely to cause trouble, like thermal spud" , "Tricky situation - baked spud" , "that's controversial" .)