Taco Tuesday: Thai Cucumber Relish

This is the perfect compliment to the Thai Peanut Chicken I posted a couple weeks ago.  Recipe is here.

(I made both recipes last night. For the chicken recipe, I excluded the bell peppers in the since I knew we'd have veggies with the cucumber and onion in this relish recipe.  I cooked the chicken in the crockpot on top of the onion, then discarded most of the onions when I took the chicken out to shred.  I added a little more sugar to my individual portion of peanut chicken because I thought it was a smidge on the savory side.  I also thought it might have been a little thick and could have added a splash more of chicken stock at the end.  All in all, we love the chicken, still tweaking it a bit.)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 distilled vinegar (rice wine vinegar if you happen to have that)
1/4 cup boiling water
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (or regular)
2 tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped
1 jalapeño (1 or more Thai red chiles would be ideal, but they are pricey and hard to come by)
1/4 red onion (or 4 small shallots, I used 1 large shallot)
1 small cucumber, diced or sliced, whatever you prefer
*optional: fish sauce and thai chile paste to taste

Directions:

Combine first 4 ingredients. (I blended them, in my tiny blender, and added fish sauce and Thai chile paste)  Add next four ingredients.  Enjoy!

I adapted this recipe from this one.