Make ready to fire the French stoves (7)
I believe the answer is:
cockles
'stoves' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are plural nouns, I can't see how they can define each other.
'make ready to fire the french' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'the french' could be 'les' (plural form of 'the' in French) and 'les' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'cock' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cockles that I've seen before include "Molluscs" , "In song, Molly Malone used to sell these and mussels" , "Edible shellfish" , "seafood" .)