Spread one cup of baking soda on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake it for an hour at 140 c. When you take it out of the oven handle with gloves because its more concentrated alkalinity makes it more caustic and likely to irritate your skin. Store it in an airtight container as you'll only need a small amount for this recipe.

Dissolve baked baking soda and salt in water then mix with flour. The flour will turn yellow, that's the baking soda turning it all ramen-y.

Knead hard, knead really hard. This is an unfriendly dough. It will feel dry and flaky but do NOT add a single extra drop of water. Wrap the kneaded ball of dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes to an hour.

Form the dough into a thick disc and pass it through the pasta machine on the widest setting.

Keep running it through the narrower settings until it's to your desired thickness (or thinness as the case may be).

Here comes the fun part.

Wait a minute and then pass the thin sheet of ramen dough through the spaghetti setting of the machine.

At this point you can keep them as they are or squish 'em with your fingers lightly to give them that zigzaggy, squiggly ramen shape we all love to slurp.

You can eat them right now (and I bet that's what you will do with the first batch) or form into 'nests' and dry or freeze for a not-at-all guilty lunch later.

Boil in lightly salted water for a minute and a half, rinse, and then plop into hot, delicious broth and top with whatever your little heart desires.