Past eight, cooking pasta (9)
I believe the answer is:
spaghetti
'pasta' is the definition.
(spaghetti is a kind of pasta)
'past eight cooking' is the wordplay.
'cooking' indicates an anagram.
'past'+'eight'='pasteight'
'pasteight' anagrammed gives 'SPAGHETTI'.
(Other definitions for spaghetti that I've seen before include "with many strands" , "Pasta twirled around a fork" , "Sort of junction" , "something resembling tangled wires" , "is often sucked in" .)