Cook embracing a brawl (4)
I believe the answer is:
fray
'brawl' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'cook embracing a' is the wordplay.
'cook' becomes 'fry' (I've seen this before).
'embracing' is an insertion indicator.
'fry' going around 'a' is 'FRAY'.
(Other definitions for fray that I've seen before include "Suffer peripheral damage" , "Wear thin - brawl" , "Tempers may do" , "Wear away from rubbing" , "Disturbance" .)