Soup – Too much pepper in soup: any way to fix

For heat, I recommend chili oil as opposed to a paste. That and white pepper should give you a pretty solid heat component. Even though the thought initially made me go EEEEEEW, ATK does recommend a a 50/50 combination of Balsamic and red wine vinegars as a replacement for the ideal Black Chinese Vinegar, which is probably what great Chinese restaurants use. Do you eat eggs? If so, I'd certainly use one. Here's the technique, again from ATK " Without stirring soup, use soupspoon to slowly drizzle very thin streams of egg mixture (1/2 tsp corntarch, 1 tsp water beaten with 1 egg) into pot in circular motion. Let soup sit 1 minute, then return saucepan to medium-high heat. Bring soup to gentle boil, then immediately remove from heat. Gently stir soup once to evenly distribute egg."

You probably should considerably up your soy sauce. Consider too your mushrooms. "Assorted" can mean just about anything. Some mushrooms are very strongly flavored in a way that just plain clashes with Chinese Hot and Sour. That could very well account for the barnyard odor you describe. I'd recommend sticking to shiitake/oyster/woodear if you can.

You have cream of beefy gin soup, with no scallion taste? Unless you are desperate not to lose the ingredients, it might be time to let this one go the way of all things.

If you really wish to recover it, and are willing to risk more good ingredients, I would get some chuck, and braise it with onions, then add it to the soup. Finish with fresh scallions, perhaps lightly sauteed. This would give you strongly flavored meat to compete with the gin, akin to venison and juniper. Also, hot sauce :-)

But it may not be worth it... you could braise the beef with the onions, and then just eat it!