Cook welcomes a brawl (4)
I believe the answer is:
fray
'brawl' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'cook welcomes a' is the wordplay.
'cook' becomes 'fry' (I've seen this before).
'welcomes' is an insertion indicator (in sense of 'invites in').
'fry' going around 'a' is 'FRAY'.
(Other definitions for fray that I've seen before include "Suffer peripheral damage" , "Conflict; wear at edges" , "Wear thin - brawl" , "Wear away from rubbing" , "discordant interchange" .)