A few years back, it seemed like you couldn't throw a brick in a crowded restaurant without hitting someone eating mahi mahi. These days, now that I'm allowed back into restaurants again provided I'm not carrying any bricks, not so much. But it was ubiquitous for a while.

One of the side effects of its popularity, for me at least, was that I never bought it for home cooking. If the grocery stores I shopped in carried it at all, it was more expensive than other, trustworthy, known-quantity fish. So I never really tried it or worked with it.

Until a couple of months ago, that is. Once again, Costco gets the credit or the blame. Fresh seafood at Costco is a bit of a crap shoot. You can be in the mood to buy some fish, and go to Costco, and nothing they have will do it to you. It'll either be a bit too expensive, a bit too raggedy, or you're fucking sick of coming home and wrapping tiny tilapia fillets in cling film to put in the freezer.

On one such occasion, I looked in a section I rarely look at - bagged frozen fish. And they had a two pound bag of individually wrapped and frozen mahi mahi fillets for a fairly reasonable price, as fish goes. So I bought it, and kind of fell a little in love, because for me, at least, it's got everything I want in a weekday fish.

By weekday fish, I mean something I can cook on the fly. As a casual, weekday, gotta-feed-myeslf-I-guess entree. First, no skin, no bones. I'm not averse to fish skin or pinbones if it's a fish I really like and I'm in the mood to put in the effort, but for times I can't be bothered? That's a dealbreaker, ladies.*

Even better, it's a good portion size. You know those tilapia fillets they sell? The ones that are always just a little bit too thin and a little too small? These, dear Goldilocks, are just right. Closer to an inch thick, so there's room for it to actually flake, and fairly uniform in thickness, which makes them easier to cook properly. 

They have a mild flavor, and a nice, meaty texture a bit farther on the spectrum toward swordfish than most of your standard whitefish. And while they aren't the most environmentally friendly fish in the universe, there's only a one in five chance the stuff in Costco is the stuff Monterey Bay wants me to avoid**. 

I don't do anything fancy with them. Hot pan, a little oil, simple seasonings, a side or two. Most recently it was soy sauce and black pepper, served with dressed buckwheat noodles and gingery CSA greens. I may get a bit more inventive in the future, maybe use it for some fish tacos or do some kind of coating or breading. Or I may just keep being lazy, thawing them out quickly after I get home and using them as my new favorite convenience fish.

* If you don't watch 30 Rock, I now seem like a huge douchebag. Not my fault, though, because who doesn't watch 30 Rock?

** No, that's not how it works, I know. But the last time I looked the information was presented differently and I haven't had a chance to examine the packaging to see if the Kirkland brand stuff is the evil kind. But it's not overfished, at least.