cast iron skillet

Tim,
I don't know what an instant pot is.   It sounds like the name of a company that has home delivery for CBD.  

Kevin

I see from the web that "Instant Pot" is a registered trademark. They look like pressure cookers to me, only not much like my mother's pressure cooker.

I like the strategy you're using. Aside from the sticking, it adds flavour. I'd rub with kosher salt along with the pepper, though.

I should mention that there are people who swear by their air fryers to cook steak, though if I were to cook a steak it would probably involve charcoal and an outdoor grill.

Supposedly when the meat has properly cooked, it will come unstuck by itself. Personal experience makes me sceptical, though.

I cooked fried chicken in the Air Fryer.   The texture of the chicken was strange and awful.  It kind of turned into a rubbery sponge.   i returned the device.  

I am going to try cooking a thin steak in the cast iron pan on a lower heat to see if that works.  I'm guessing it will take an hour to reach the safe internal temperature.  I know it cooks well in the oven and broiler, but I still wish to experiment.

Kevin

The thing to remember is that an air fryer is a convection oven. Convection ovens are similar to traditional electric ovens except for the fan. And my air fryer doesn't have a bottom heating element.

Convection ovens run at lower thermostat settings. Where I'd set a regular oven to 450°F, I'd set my air fryer to 400 (which is as high as it will go anyway). For 350, I downscale to 320. The cooking time is also typically shorter.

My wife has cooked chicken parts in the air fryer and been very happy. It's not big enough to hold a whole chicken, so on that I cannot say. But broadly speaking, air dryers excel at cooking frozen foods and should conversely not be used to cook things that boil or spatter.

Aside from the energy benefits, one thing I like about my unit is that I can make up biscuit dough and freeze it, then when I want 1 or 2 biscuits, pull them out of the freezer, set the thermostat to about 350 and time to around 8 minutes (I have a wind-up timer, so not very precise). They puff up wonderfully, though I usually like to flip them for the last minute or 2 just to get browning on both sides. Speaking of biscuits, I need to make up a batch of oatmeal cookie dough. I have a pan that I can bake a cookie in at 320°,

So while cast iron is cooking with inertia, air frying is mostly the opposite. Little or no pre-heating or retained heat.