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1
Bring the stock to a steady simmer in a medium saucepan. Add the wood ear mushrooms, lily flowers, and bamboo shoots. Simmer briefly until the vegetables are heated through — the stock should remain clear and lightly fragrant.
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2
Add the silken tofu strips and stir gently to distribute without breaking them. Return the soup to a bare simmer.
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3
Give the cornstarch slurry a stir to re-suspend it, then pour it into the simmering soup in a thin, steady stream, stirring continuously. The soup thickens within seconds to a light, slightly viscous consistency — it coats a spoon in a thin, silk-like film but flows freely. Stop adding slurry at that point; too far and the texture becomes gluey.
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4
Reduce to the gentlest possible simmer — the surface should show only the faintest tremor, no vigorous bubbling. Pour the beaten egg in a thin, continuous stream from a height while stirring the soup slowly in one direction. The egg sets immediately into long, fine threads — egg flowers (dan hua). If the threads are delicate and separate, the temperature was correct. Chunky, scrambled pieces indicate the heat was too high.
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5
This is where the dish lives or dies. Remove the pan from the heat. Add half the Chinkiang black vinegar, stir, and taste. The sourness must be immediately assertive — the dominant register from the first spoonful, with white pepper heat following at once and the stock's savouriness as the foundation beneath both. Add more vinegar as needed to reach that assertive, perceptible sourness. Add the white pepper and Sichuan pepper, adjust salt. The vinegar's aromatic complexity — darker and more complex than rice vinegar — is only preserved by adding it off the heat.