Stupid-sounding moggy beginning to eat salt (8)

'salt' is the definition.
(silicate is a kind of salt)

'stupid-sounding moggy beginning to eat' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'sounding' could be 'e' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'e' is located in the answer.
'moggy' could be 'cat' (I've seen this before) and 'cat' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...