Soup with Ham and Bean Curd Strips (揚州煮乾絲/火腿乾絲湯)

Broadly speaking, Shanghai cuisines include dishes from China's Jiangsu province (江蘇省) and Zhejiang province (浙江省), which cover a lot of grounds, such as Suzhou (蘇州), Hangzhou (杭州), Yangzhou (揚州), Wu-Xi (無錫), each with unique and distinguished culinary style.  This dish is a renowned Yangzhou dish.  (#ShanghaiDish)

1. The key ingredient for this dish is the Jinhua Ham (金華火腿).  We can find 8-oz packs in some, but not all, Chinese markets (at around $7.50 per pack), which is pricey, but well worth the money for its added rich flavor, in my opinion.  Viginia Ham available in most Chinese Markets works quite well.  Regular lunch ham does not work that well.  Cut the ham into thin match-sltick slices.  Note- The Jinhua ham comes in thick, hardened slices, making it hard to cut. Please re-read safety rule #1 in my Sep 9 (2014) post, and be careful!
2. Other ingredients: a pack of bean curd strips (see product package), half pound of peeled, deveined large shrimp (8-10 shrimps, $9.99/lb in one of the Chinese markets here in LA, see marinating instructions in Step 7 below), black fungus (soak in water to reconstitute, remove stems, and slice), and the stems of the Mustard Greens (Gai Choy, the transliterated name commonly used in Chinese markets, 芥菜; rinse thoroughly and use only the stems, i.e., the top 1/4 portion of the vegetable, chop into smaller chunks; the rest of the vegetable can be chopped and stir-fried easily, with vegi-oil and salt; see this post).
3. Slice 6-8 pieces off of a fresh or not-so-fresh-left-to-dry chunk of ginger, then further cut the slices into matchstick size. Note- We may not want to cut the ginger into much finer slices, for some of us might want to pick them out at eating time.
4. In a medium-sized pot (~8" in diameter) put in ginger, ham slices, and black fungus.
5. Add 1 can of chicken broth (~1.5 cup), 1.5 cup of water (3 cups if you like it slightly soupy, 6 cups to make it a real soup), and a pack of bean curd strips,  Season wirh 2 tsp of white pepper.  Bring to boil, and simmer for ~15 minutes (with the lid on). Note- No need to add salt. Both ham and chicken broth contain salt already. Note- Step 1-5 can be done long before serving the soup, to ease the pressure of last minute cooking when entertaining guests.
6. Before serving, bring the pot to boil again, then add mustard greens chunks into the pot, and let simmer till the mustard greens turn soft (~3 minutes, with the lid off, if you like to keep the mustard greens in green color).
7. Add shrimps into the pot, bring the pot to boil, and let simmer till the shrimps turn fresh pink color (~2 minutes).  Note- Important!  Defrost and marinate 8-10 shrimps for an hour or two with 1 tsp of rice cooking wine, 2 tsp of corn starch, and 1/8 tsp of baking soda. 
8. Sprinkle sesame oil on top, and serve.  Note- No salt added so far, mainly because the ham and the chicken broth are already salted.  Here is a picture of the end product.