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1
Combine the water, bruised spring onions, sliced ginger, and dried shiitake mushrooms in the copper chimney pot. Bring to a simmer over lit charcoal. The broth is ready when it is clear, gently rolling, and carries a faint mushroom and ginger fragrance — it must not reduce to a heavy stock.
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2
While the broth comes to temperature, mix the sesame paste with the mashed fermented tofu, chilli oil, and rice vinegar until the sauce is smooth and cohesive. Stir in the sliced spring onion and coriander. Set the sauce in individual bowls at each place with the pickled chive blossoms alongside. The sauce must be composed before the lamb reaches the table — this is where the dish lives or dies, for the sesame-fermented dipping sauce is as constitutive of the dish as the lamb itself.
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3
Arrange the near-frozen, paper-thin lamb slices on a platter. Each diner takes a slice and swirls it through the simmering broth for 20–30 seconds. The lamb is ready when it has just lost its raw pink colour but remains tender and pale rose at the centre — grey, shrunken meat signals overcooking.
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4
Remove the cooked lamb with chopsticks and draw it through the sesame paste sauce before eating. Continue until the lamb is finished. At the meal's close, add noodles or tofu to the now-enriched broth and simmer until just cooked through — the noodles should be tender with bite, the broth deeply savoury from the accumulated lamb.