Salt-Packed Cold Roast Beef With Bread-Crumb Salsa

• 24 ounces trimmed and clean beef tenderloin
• 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil
• 2 teaspoons finely and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 to 3 pounds kosher salt (Diamond Crystal only)
• 1 1/2 cups cold water
• 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 6 ounces day-old peasant bread, torn into free-form smallish croutons
• 1 pound assorted sweet cherry tomatoes, split in half
• 1 bunch scallions, sliced thinly in rings, from the white all the way up through as much of the green stalk as is edible
• 4 small cloves fresh and sticky new garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 packed tablespoon plus 1 packed teaspoon salt-packed anchovies, rinsed, filleted and then minced
• 2 lemons, zested, supremed and deseeded, and all the juice from whats left of the skeleton after supreming the segments
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup clean and dry flat-leaf Italian parsley leaves

1. Heat a large, heavy cast-iron skillet over medium heat for 5 whole minutes and make sure the hood is on.
2. Rub the fillet with 1 tablespoon oil, then sprinkle and coat evenly with black pepper.
3. Brown the meat thoroughly on every side and the cut ends so that you have formed a nice crust universally around the fillet, creating a barrier for the coming salt crust.
4. (This takes 7 to 8 minutes to brown correctly.)
5. Remove the meat from the pan and let cool on a wire rack set in a sheet pan to have a cool and mostly dry piece of meat.
6. Mix the salt with the water to form what looks like bright white wet sand.
7. Spread a thin but solid and even layer of salt on the bottom of a 1/4 sheet pan and set the roast on it, then pack the remaining moist salt tidily around the browned meat, forming a solid case resembling a cast on a broken leg.
8. Where there are cracks, redistribute the salt and fix them.
9. This should be a fun and unfussy task.
10. If you need more salt or more water or less water and more salt, mix up whatever mortar you need to get the beef encased.
11. Place the salt-crusted beef on its sheet pan into a 250-degree oven and let it cook for 45 minutes.
12. If you weighed it properly at the outset, 45 minutes at 250 degrees is fail-safe.
13. Otherwise, use an insta-read thermometer and go in through a cut end to the direct center, and pull it when it hits 125 degrees inside.
14. Crack the salt crust, dust the granules of clinging salt off with a clean, dry side towel, and set to rest on a tray in your station.
15. Dont refrigerate, but label properly the time and date for Health Department.

clean beef tenderloin, grapeseed oil, ground black pepper, kosher salt, cold water, extravirgin olive oil, bread, tomatoes, scallions, sticky new garlic, salt, lemons, red wine vinegar, clean

Taken from cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016950 (may not work)