Searing steaks. Teflon really should get too hot. You need a really hot pan to get a great seared steak, do it in a cast iron instead and get healthy iron in your steak instead of crappy chemicals.
Anything that needs to go in the oven.
If you don't want a cast iron, don't get one? If you think the video makes it look like overkill, it's because it is. It's like taking your car to the car wash, waxing it and changing oil every time you park it. Yeah, it's probably good for the car and it will look brand new every time you use it, but you don't need to do it and it's a major hassle.
When you're done cooking with teflon= wash with soap and put on drying rack. Done.
When your done with cast iron = wash with hot water and/or salt. Dry on residual heat on stove. Done.
If teflon gets chipped and or used = buy a new one.
If cast iron gets seasoning chipped or rust = reseason.
Now if you have no problem buying new teflon pans all the time, then go for it but I always think about Samuel Vimes theory about boots, and end up going for the more expensive, quality alternative.
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”