Poets cooking sauce (5)
I believe the answer is:
pesto
'sauce' is the definition.
(pesto is a type of sauce)
'poets cooking' is the wordplay.
'cooking' is an anagram indicator (cook can mean to falsify or distort).
'poets' anagrammed gives 'PESTO'.
(Other definitions for pesto that I've seen before include "Sauce of basil, pine nuts, etc" , "Pasta sauce mainly of basil and cheese" , "Sauce made of basil and cheese" , "Green sauce" , "Italian sauce containing basil" .)