Excessive water left in food (5)
I believe the answer is:
flood
'excessive water' is the definition.
'flood' can be an answer for 'water' (I've seen this before). I'm not sure about the 'excessive' bit.
'left in food' is the wordplay.
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'l' placed inside 'food' is 'FLOOD'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for flood that I've seen before include "Light" , "lot of water" , "Brim over" , "Inundation" , "Overflow of water" .)