Cook a lot of little fishes (3)
I believe the answer is:
fry
'cook' is the definition.
(I know that fry is a type of cook)
'a lot of little fishes' is the wordplay.
'a lot' means to remove the first letter (I've seen 'a lot of' mean this).
'little fishes' becomes 'ry' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'of' with its first letter taken away is 'f'.
'f'+'ry'='FRY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for fry that I've seen before include "Cook in oil" , "young children" , "Small fish for the pan" , "Newly hatched fishes" , "Newly-hatched fishes for the pan?" .)