Recipe by: Jen Lin-Liu , author of On the Noodle Road and the food blog Feeding a Family of Four

Make the dough:

Heap flour on a large, flat surface and make a well in the center.

Pour 1 cup of water into the well and work it into the flour, mixing with your hands. Slowly add more water, about ¼ cup at a time, mixing thoroughly until all the flour has been incorporated and the dough is soft, pliable, and smooth.

Transfer the dough to a clean surface and knead by hand or with a stand mixer for 3 to 5 minutes, then cover the dough with a damp cloth or wrap it in plastic and let it sit for at least 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough:

Make sure the rolling surface is clean and dry, then dust it with flour. Break off a quarter of the dough to work with, leaving the rest under the damp cloth or wrapped in plastic. Knead the dough briefly, then flatten and stretch it with your hands into a rectangle. Sprinkle the dough with flour and flatten the dough with a rolling pin, forming a long rectangle about ¼ inch thick and about a third the width of the pin.

Starting with the end closest to you, flatten a small section of the dough, rolling the pin back and forth in a rapid and forceful motion. Pause frequently to sprinkle the rolling surface, the dough, and your pin with flour. Once you’ve flattened the first section, liberally flour the surface of the dough and roll it onto the pin, then move on to the next section, pushing down on the pin to make the layers thinner and wider (though not wider than the width of the pin). Unwind the dough occasionally and sprinkle it with additional flour to make sure the layers of dough don’t stick together. If the dough gets too difficult to work with, cut it in half crosswise and work one half at a time. Once you’ve flattened all the dough, unfurl it and check that it’s uniformly thin (but not paper-thin), flattening any thicker sections with the pin. The dough should be no more than 2 millimeters thick.

Wrap the dough once more around the pin, then, holding the pin above the board, unroll the dough so that it folds over itself in S-shaped layers about 3 inches wide. With a sharp knife, cut the dough crosswise. For standard Chinese noodles, cut the dough into ⅛-inch-wide strands. Shake the noodles lightly with your fingers to separate the strands, then set them aside on a surface or plate sprinkled with flour while you roll out the rest of the dough, a quarter at a time.

Cook the noodles:

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop in the noodles. Boil for 4 to 5 minutes.

Remove the noodles from heat and drain. Chinese noodles are often bathed quickly in cold water to stop the cooking process.

Toss the noodles with a sauce of your own choosing. Serve immediately.