One pan, if you start the potatoes first

A sheet pan fails when everything wants a different amount of time and you pretend it does not. Potatoes need a head start. Broccoli needs less time than chicken skin. Put them all on cold and you get pale chicken, hard potatoes, and broccoli that has steamed in a puddle.

220°C, and a pan that is not lined with a soaking pile of vegetables. A little space between the thighs lets the skin crisp. If the pan is crowded, use two pans. Steam is the enemy. Pat the chicken dry. Wet skin does not brown.

The order

Potatoes alone for 15 minutes. They should look dry on the outside and still be firm. Chicken on for 15 minutes, skin up, do not flip. Broccoli for the last 12 to 15 minutes, in the gaps, not piled on the chicken. The florets should have dark edges. Bright green all the way through means they need a few more minutes. Black and limp means the pan was too full and you left them under the chicken.

Bone-in thighs are the right cut. They stay juicy at the temperature that browns potatoes. Boneless breasts are done before the potatoes and dry out if you wait. If breasts are what you have, add them with the broccoli, not with the first chicken step.

Paprika is for color and a little warmth, not heat. Salt is a teaspoon across the whole pan, which is not much once it is on 1.2 kg of chicken and 700 g of potatoes. Taste a potato. If it is bland, the chicken will be too. A pinch more salt on the potatoes when they come out of their first roast fixes it.

Lemon at the table, not roasted for 40 minutes. A long roast turns lemon bitter. A squeeze at the end is the acid the dish wants.

Leftovers keep three days. Reheat on a pan in a hot oven, not in a covered microwave bowl, or the skin goes soft.