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Dietary supplement's almost essential minimum with beginner to cooking (7,1)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

vitamin c

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'cooking' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't see how one could define the other.

'dietary supplement's almost essential minimum with beginner' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'dietary supplement' could be 'vitamin' (I've seen this in another clue) and 'vitamin' is located in the answer.
A single letter 'c' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

'to' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for vitamin c that I've seen before include "Scurvy defender" , "dietary stipulation found in Brussels" , "Ascorbic acid" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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