Mother puts pill out, and something for hot dish (8)

'something for hot dish' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't tell whether this works.

'mother puts pill out' is the wordplay.
'mother puts' becomes 'ma' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'pill' becomes 'tablet' (synonyms).
'out' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ma' put inside 'tablet' is 'TABLEMAT'.

'and' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?